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THE  HOUND   OF  HEAVEN 
AN  INTERPRETATION 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO    •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA    •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON    •   BOMBAY    •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE 
HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

AN  INTERPRETATION 


BY 
FRANCIS  P.  LeBUFFE,  SJ. 

PROFESSOR  OF  PSYCHOLOGY,  FORDHAM  UNIVERSITY 
GRADUATE  SCHOOL 


Nm  f  nrk 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1921 

AU  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1921 
By  THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  June,  1921. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Jmjirtmt  jtot^at 

JOSEPHUS   H.    R0CK\VELL,   S.J. 

Praepositus  Prov.  Marylandiae.    Neo-Eboracensis. 

Niljtl  obBtat, 

Arthur  J.  Scanlan,  S.T.D. 

Lihrorum  Censor. 

Jlm)tnmatttr 

fPATRiTius  J.  Hayes,  D.D. 

Archiepiscopus  Neo-Eboracensis. 


Neo-Eboraci, 
die  7  Aprilis.  1921. 


TO 

THE    HOUND    OF    HEAVEN 

THAT    HIS    PURSUIT    OF    OUR    SOULS 

MAY    BE     SWIFT    AND     BRIEF 


PREFACE 

THIS  little  volume  is  offered  as  an  ascetical 
and  scriptural  interpretation  of  the  poem. 
The  author  refrains  almost  entirely  from  literary 
questions.  His  one  aim  has  been  to  attempt  to 
clarify  obscure  passages  and  to  give  all  passages  the 
atmosphere  that  is  required  for  them  from  Sacred 
Scripture  and  from  standard  ascetical  principles,  for 
he  feels  that  these  not  only  bring  added  light  and 
pleasure  to  the  understanding  of  the  poem,  so  instinct 
with  invigorating  thought,  but  that  they  are  neces- 
sarily demanded  for  even  a  superficial  attainment  of 
Thompson's  thought.  The  whole  poem  is  vibrant  with 
spirituality;  and  anyone  who  misses  this,  is  thereby 
hopelessly  out  of  harmony  with  the  whole  theme. 

The  author  wishes  to  caution  the  reader  that  he 
has  no  intention  of  asserting  that  Thompson  had 
such  or  such  definite  passages  of  Scripture  in  view. 
Such  passages  are  offered  as  illuminative  of  the  poem, 
not  necessarily  as  sources. 

Lastly  the  author  wishes  to  express  his  indebted- 
ness to  his  many  Jesuit .  brethren  who  have  so  un- 
selfishly aided  him  by  encouragement,  cooperation, 
and  constructive  advice  in  this  work. 

Francis  P.  LeBuffe,  S.  J. 
Fordham  University, 

Feast  of  SS.  Simon  and  Jude,  1920. 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 
AN  INTERPRETATION 


INTRODUCTORY    ESSAY 

TO  all  who  read  the  history  of  mankind  with 
unsoiled  eyes  the  one  outstanding  and  out- 
distancing fact  is  the  insistent  love  of  God.  This  love 
was  first  shown  in  the  building  of  this  world-home  for 
man,  so  beautiful  and  so  plural  in  its  appeal  to  every 
sense  of  its  rational  lord.  Man  was  to  enjoy  it  without 
labor,  reaping  where  he  had  not  sown.  This  was  God's 
first  manifestation  of  love,  yet  man's  truancy  came 
speedily.  Adam  and  Eve  threw  away  God's  love  for 
them  that  they  might  hearken  to  a  false  promise  of 
a  share  in  self-sufficing  knowledge.  Forsaken  and 
spurned  by  them,  God  would  not  have  it  so.  Man, 
as  any  other  foolish,  petulant  child,  must  be  saved 
from  his  own  folly.  Man  would  make  away  from 
God,  and  God  determined  to  pursue  man  and  bring 
him  back.  This  pursuit  of  the  human  race  by  God  is 
described  by  St.  John  Chrysostom  (Homily  5  on  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  ii,  14-16) : 

"Paul  wishing  to  show  the  great  kindness  of  God 
towards  man,  and  the  Love  which  He  had  for  the 
human  race,  after  saying:  'Forasmuch  then  as  the 
children  were  partakers  of  blood  and  flesh,  He  also 
Himself  likewise  took  part  of  the  same'  (ii,  14),  follows 
up  the  subject  in  this  passage.     For  do  not  regard 


2  TTITi:  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

lightly  what  is  spoken,  nor  think  this  merely  a  slight 
matter,  His  taking  on  Him  our  flesh.  He  granted  not 
this  to  Angels;  'For  verily  He  taketh  not  hold  of 
Angels,  but  of  the  seed  of  Abraham.'  What  is  it  that 
he  saith?  He  took  not  on  Him  an  Angel's  nature,  but 
man's.  But  what  is  'He  taketh  hold  of?  He  did 
not  (he  means)  grasp  that  nature,  which  belongs  to 
Angels,  but  ours.  But  why  did  he  not  say,  'He  took 
on  Him,'  but  used  this  expression,  'He  taketh  hold 
of?  It  is  derived  from  the  figure  of  persons  pursuing 
those  who  turn  away  from  them,  and  doing  every- 
thing to  overtake  them  as  they  flee,  and  to  take  hold 
of  them  as  they  are  bounding  away.  For  when 
human  nature  was  fleeing  from  Him,  and  fleeing  far 
away  (for  we  'were  far  off — Ephesians  ii,  13),  He 
pursued  after  and  overtook  us.  He  showed  that  He 
has  done  this  only  out  of  kindness  and  love  and  tender 
care." 

This  pursuit  was  long,  and  man  had  found  his  way 
down  to  the  utter  depths  of  the  most  degrading 
paganism,  and  seemed  almost  successful  in  his  flight 
from  God.  This,  St.  Paul  places  before  our  eyes  in 
words  that  picture  with  unrivalled  force  those  godless 
men:  "So  that  they  are  inexcusable,  because  that, 
when  they  knew  God,  they  have  not  glorified  Him  as 
God,  or  given  thanks,  but  became  vain  in  their 
thoughts  and  their  foolish  heart  was  darkened.  For 
professing  themselves  to  be  wise,  they  became  fools, 
and  they  changed  the  glory  of  the  incorruptible  God 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY  3 

into  the  likeness  of  the  image  of  a  corruptible  man, 
and  of  birds,  and  of  fourfooted  beasts,  and  of  creeping 
things.  Wherefore  God  gave  them  up  to  the  desires 
of  their  heart,  unto  uncleanness  to  dishonor  their  own 
bodies  among  themselves,  who  changed  the  truth  of 
God  into  a  lie,  and  worshipped  and  served  the  creature 
rather  than  the  Creator,  who  is  blessed  forever.  Amen. 
For  this  cause  God  delivered  them  up  to  shameful 
affections  .  .  .  and  as  they  liked  not  to  have  God 
in  their  knowledge,  God  delivered  them  to  a  reprobate 
sense,  to  do  those  things  which  are  not  convenient" 
(Rom.  i,  20-28).  It  was,  then,  when  man  had  all  but 
become  a  beast,  ''when  the  fulness  of  the  time  was 
come,  God  sent  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made 
under  the  law,  that  He  might  redeem  them  who  were 
under  the  law,  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of 
sons"  (Galatians  iv,  4-5),  ''and  the  Word  was  made 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us  .  .  .  and  of  His  fulness 
we  all  have  received  and  grace  for  grace"  (St.  John 
i,  14,  16).  Hope  was  relighted  in  the  human  heart 
and  out  of  the  sodden  ashes  of  paganism  arose  the 
serried  ranks  of  martyrs  and  virgins  and  holy  witnesses 
to  the  love  and  kindliness  of  God  to  fallen,  fleeing 
man. 

This  racial  pursuit  of  God  is  again,  in  a  very  special 
way,  manifested  in  the  history  of  the  Jews,  the  chosen 
people  of  God  under  the  older  dispensation.  Having 
selected  them  from  out  the  nations  of  the  world  at 
the  time  He  called  Abraham  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldeans, 


4  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

God  further  showed  His  loving  care,  for  it  was  He 
*'who  smote  Egypt  with  their  first  bom  .  .  .  who 
brought  out  Israel  from  among  them  .  .  .  with  a 
mighty  hand  and  with  a  stretched  out  arm  .  .  .  and 
slew  strong  kings  .  .  .  and  He  gave  their  land  for 
an  inheritance"  (Psalm  cxxxv,  10-21).  But  the 
people  would  not  have  God  alone  for  "they  made  also 
a  calf  in  Horeb  and  they  adored  the  graven  thing" 
(Psalm  cv,  19).  Yet  not  for  that  did  God  abandon 
Israel  to  his  witlessness.  "As  an  eagle  enticing  her 
young  to  fly,  and  hovering  over  them,  He  spread  His 
wings,  and  hath  taken  him  and  carried  him  on  His 
shoulders.  The  Lord  alone  was  his  leader  and  there 
was  no  strange  god  with  him.  He  set  him  upon  high 
land  that  he  might  eat  the  fruits  of  the  fields,  that 
he  might  suck  honey  out  of  the  rock  and  oil  out  of  the 
hardest  stone,  butter  of  the  herd  and  milk  of  the  sheep 
with  the  fat  of  the  lambs,  and  of  the  rams  of  the  breed 
of  Basan,  and  goats  with  the  marrow  of  wheat,  and 
might  drink  the  purest  blood  of  the  grape"  (Deu- 
teronomy xxxii,  11-14).  Surely  Israel  was  a  petted 
child  yet  with  wonted  petulancy,  he  balked  his  Fath- 
er's plans  for  "the  beloved  grew  fat  and  kicked:  he 
grew  fat  and  thick  and  gross,  he  forsook  God  who  made 
him  and  departed  from  God  his  Saviour.  They  pro- 
voked Him  by  strange  gods  and  stirred  Him  up  to 
anger  with  their  abominations"  (Deuteronomy  xxxii, 
15-16).  This,  too,  was  their  continued  way  of  way- 
wardness until  the  words  of  aging  Josue  came  true: 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY  5 

*'But  if  you  will  embrace  the  errors  of  these  nations 
that  dwell  among  you  and  make  marriages  with  them 
and  join  friendships;  know  ye  for  a  certainty  that  the 
Lord  your  God  will  not  destroy  them  before  your 
face,  but  they  shall  be  a  pit  and  a  snare  in  your  way, 
and  a  stumbling-block  at  your  side,  and  stakes  in  your 
eyes,  till  He  take  you  away  and  destroy  you  from  off 
this  excellent  land,  which  He  hath  given  you"  (Josue 
xxiii,  12-13).  The  day  did  come,  when  the  exiled 
Jews  sobbed  out  in  their  sorrow  (Psalm  cxxxvi,  1-4) : 

"Upon  the  rivers  of  Babylon,  there  we  sat  and  wept, 

When  we  remembered  Sion. 
On  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof 

We  hung  up  our  instruments; 
For  there  they  that  led  us  into  captivity,  required  of  us 

The  words  of  songs; 
And  they  that  carried  us  away,  said: 

'  Sing  ye  to  us  a  hymn  of  the  songs  of  Sion/ 
How  shall  we  sing  the  song  of  the  Lord 

In  a  land  that  is  strange?" 

Again  and  again  they  were  won  back  to  God's  friend- 
ship but  again  and  yet  again  went  aside  after  other 
loves  and  the  whole  history  of  that  strange,  stifE-necked 
folk  is  one  of  the  persistency  of  God's  love,  which 
would  not  brook  refusal.  Not  even  when  the  Master 
of  the  vineyard  sent  His  only  Son  to  them,  would  they 
give  Him  their  undivided  hearts,  for  that  same  Son 
was  forced  to  cry  (St.  Matthew  xxiii,  37) :  '^Jerusalem, 


6  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the  prophets  and  stonest 
them  that  are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often  would  I  have 
gathered  together  thy  children  as  the  hen  doth  gather 
her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  thou  wouldst  not!'^ 
But  despite  it  all,  on  Good  Friday  morning  they  re- 
nounced their  allegiance  to  God,  who  for  generations 
had  been  their  king;  for,  hurling  back  Pilate's  taunt, 
the  chief  priests  answered:  "We  have  no  king  but 
Caesar''  (St.  John  xix,  15).  After  this  rejection  would 
God  continue  the  pursuit?  Did  infinite  Goodness 
find  yet  more  patience  with  this  ungrateful  child? 
Yes,  even  after  they  had  murdered  their  Messiah, 
"the  Hope  of  Israel,"  "The  Desire  of  the  everlasting 
hills,"  for  twelve  long  years  the  Apostles  labored 
unitedly  in  Jerusalem  to  win  this  faithless  folk  back  to 
God.  Nor  did  the  pursuit  end  there;  for  we  know 
that  God's  love  will  pursue  them  until  the  great  day 
of  reckoning,  before  which  the  "remnant  of  the  house 
of  Israel"  is  to  be  saved. 

This  pursuit  of  the  whole  mankind  and  of  the  Jew- 
ish folk  in  particular  is  but  a  larger  manifestation  of 
God's  way  with  each  individual  soul.  "Man  is 
created  to  praise,  reverence  and  serve  God  our  Lord, 
and  by  this  means  to  save  his  soul;  and  the  other 
things  on  the  face  of  the  earth  were  created  for  man's 
sake,  and  in  order  to  aid  him  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  end  for  which  he  was  created"  (Spiritual  Exer- 
cises of  St.  Ignatius).  Hence  the  command:  "Hear, 
O  Israel,  the  Lord,  our  God,  is  one  Lord.    Thou  shalt 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY  7 

love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  thy  whole  heart,  and  with 
thy  whole  soul,  and  with  thy  whole  strength"  (Deu- 
teronomy vi,  4-5),  for  ''I  am  the  Lord  thy  God.  .  .  . 
Thou  shalt  not  have  strange  gods  before  Me.  .  .  . 
Thou  shalt  not  adore  them,  nor  serve  them:  I  am  the 
Lord  thy  God,  mighty,  jealous  (Exodus  xx,  2-5).  But 
each  soul  is  wont  to  be  rebellious  and  deems  it  hard 
to  find  in  God  its  all  of  love  and  in  subjection  to  Him 
its  highest  freedom.  "A  vain  man  is  lifted  up  into 
pride  and  thinketh  himself  born  free  like  a  wild  ass's 
colt"  (Job  xi,  12).  Mostly  our  rebellion  is  but  the 
ignorant  querulousness  of  a  peevish  child,  simply  a 
bhnd  groping  of  the  human  heart  among  created 
things  after  that  "unlimited  good"  which  alone  will 
satisfy  it  adequately.  Sometimes,  however,  there  is  a 
deal  of  conviction  within  us  that  it  is  hard  for  us  to 
kick  against  the  goad,  for  we  realize,  to  our  own  in- 
creasing discomfiture,  that  by  not  yielding  we  are 
hurting  our  own  real  good.  Rarely  is  our  rebellion  an 
open  rejection  of  God's  authority.  Yet  there  are  men 
that  are  such  rebels,  and  of  each  of  them  it  can  truly 
be  said:  ''  His  pride  and  his  arrogancy  and  his  indig- 
nation is  more  than  his  strength"  (Isaias  xvi,  6),  for 
this  is  the  kind  of  pride  which  ultimately  refuses  to 
be  conquered  by  God  and  leads  direct  to  eternal 
wreckage  of  all  that  is  truly  noble  in  man. 

It  is  this  endeavor  of  the  soul  to  make  away  from 
God  and  God's  pursuit  that  forms  the  theme  of  this 
poem.    Whether  this  poem  is  autobiographical  or  not, 


8  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

seems  largely  a  superfluous  academic  question.  Un- 
doubtedly it  is,  at  least  in  broad  outlines,  but  it  seems 
to  add  little  inward  worth  to  the  interpretation  to 
know  that  this  line  talHes  with  a  certain  incident  in 
Thompson's  Hfe  and  that  line  with  another.  This 
"speciahst"  treatment  makes  little  for  the  general 
appeal.  What  is  of  interest  and  what  secures  the 
widest  appeal  for  the  poem  is  that  it  is  autobiograph- 
ical of  "a"  soul,  in  aspects  common  to  it  and  all  man- 
kind, and  therefore  autobigraphical  of  every  soul,  for 
it  is  regrettably  true  that  every  soul  of  every  child 
of  Adam,  with  the  single  and  signal  exception  of 
Mary,  the  Mother  of  God,  has  fought  with  varying 
intensity  this  fight  against  its  ''Tremendous  Lover." 
We  have  all  "fled  Him,  down  the  nights  and  down  the 
days"  and  the  poem  smites  on  our  souls  as  did  the 
handwriting  on  Balthasar's  wall.  As  we  read  and 
ponder,  there  resound  within  our  hearts  the  accusing 
words  of  the  prophet  Nathan  to  King  David:  ''Thou 
art  the  man."  Whether  anthologists  refuse  to  class 
this  poem  as  a  "great  poem"  or  not,  it  is  more  widely 
read  and  will  be  more  widely  read  than  many  that 
measure  up  to  an  arbitrary  yardstick.  Against  its 
poignant  throbbings  we  lay  our  own  hearts  "to  beat 
and  share  commingUng  heat";  and  it  is  quite  safe  to 
say  that  many  a  prayer  has  been  breathed  and  many 
a  heart  moved  to  take  at  least  initial  steps  to  end  its 
flight  from  God,  as  line  after  line  awakened  memories 
that  burned  and  seared  the  soul  unto  its  own  healing. 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY  9 

Like  the  Psalms  of  David,  though  inevitably  with  far 
less  authority  and  consequent  appeal,  it  reads  each 
human  heart  for  its  own  self  and  makes  plain  to  it  the 
meaning  of  those  ceaseless  cravings  which,  if  mis- 
construed, torture  our  hearts  as  they  pilgrimage  to 
Father's  home.  Thompson  would  tell  us  that  all  yearn- 
ings of  the  soul  can  be  met  by  God  alone  and  that  it 
is  the  sheerest  folly  to  try  to  ease  that  fundamental 
search  for  love,  coextensive  with  our  being,  save  in  the 
way  that  God  will  have  it.  God  wants  our  love;  and 
God  will  have  it,  and  have  it  in  the  way  He  Himself 
desires — or  else  the  soul-hunger  will  never  be  eased. 
With  some  this  pursuit  of  God  is  swift  and  decisive; 
and  so  a  Magdalene  becomes  at  once  a  woman  of 
saintliest  ways,  a  Saul  stands  forth  as  the  world- 
grasping  Paul,  to  whom  ''to  Hve  is  Christ,  and  to  die 
is  gain"  (Philippians  i,  21),  a  Spanish  cavalier  is 
hurled  by  a  cannon-ball  into  the  saintliness  of  Ignatius. 
With  others  God's  task  is  harder,  the  pursuit  is 
longer  and  it  is  only  when  God  has  time  and  time  again 
^  bruised  their  hearts  and  torn  their  souls  wide  asunder 
and  plucked  thereout  each  object  that  was  loved, 
that  they  yield  to  Him  and  in  that  yielding  find  sur- 
cease of  pain  and  plenitude  of  sanctifying  love  and 
that  peace  which  the  world  cannot  give  and  is  equally 
impotent  to  take  away,  ''the  peace  of  God,  which  sur- 
passeth  all  understanding"  (Philippians  iv,  7). 

Thompson  is  not  alone  in  his  endeavor  to  show 
the  futility  of  trying  to  escape  from   God.     Holy 


lo  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Scripture,  with  all  the  force  of  God's  own  authority, 
frequently  insists  on  this  thought.  The  whole  idea  is 
summed  up  strikingly  in  our  Lord's  simple  metaphor 
of  the  Good  Shepherd:  "I  am  the  Good  Shepherd. 
The  good  shepherd  giveth  his  hfe  for  his  sheep" 
(St.  John  X,  ii),  for  ''if  he  shall  lose  one  of  them,  doth 
he  not  leave  the  ninety-nine  in  the  desert  and  go 
after  that  which  was  lost,  until  he  find  it?"  (St. 
Luke  XV,  4).  Elsewhere  in  Holy  Scripture  we  find 
similar  thoughts.  The  Royal  Psalmist  (Psalm  cxxxviii, 
7-12)  speaks  from  the  side  of  God's  omnipresence 
and  His  conserving  love,  while  Thompson  presents 
God's  pursuit  after  a  fleeing,  erring  soul  that  He  wills 
to  bring  hack  to  His  love.  The  Psalmist  view  is  one 
of  repose,  Thompson's  one  of  intensest  activity: 

''Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy  spirit? 

Or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  face? 
If  I  ascend  into  heaven,  Thou  art  there; 

If  I  descend  into  hell,  Thou  art  present. 
If  I  take  my  wings  early  in  the  morning 

And  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea, 
Even  there  also  shall  Thy  hand  lead  me 

And  Thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me. 
And  I  said:  Perhaps  darkness  shall  cover  me. 

And  night  shall  be  my  light  in  my  pleasures. 
But  darkness  shall  not  be  dark  to  Thee, 

And  night  shall  be  light  as  the  day; 
The  darkness  thereof,  and  the  light  thereof  are  alike  to 
Thee." 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY  ii 

Again  holy  Job  is  answered  by  Sophar  the  Naamathite 
(Job  xi,  7-10): 

"  Peradventure  thou  wilt  comprehend  the  steps  of  God, 

And  wilt  find  out  the  Almighty  perfectly? 
He  is  higher  than  heaven,  and  what  wilt  thou  do? 

He  is  deeper  than  hell  and  how  wilt  thou  know? 
The  measure  of  Him  is  longer  than  the  earth 

And  broader  than  the  sea. 
If  He  shall  overturn  all  things,  or  shall  press  them  to- 
gether, 

Who  shall  contradict  Him?" 

In  both  citations  the  holy  writers  take  a  static 
view  of  God's  relation  to  the  soul,  while  Thompson's 
entire  concept  is  d3aiamic.  The  whole  story  of  Saul, 
unhorsed  on  the  road  to  Damascus,  approximates 
more  nearly  the  present  theme.  "And  as  he  went  on 
his  journey,  it  came  to  pass  that  he  drew  nigh  to 
Damascus  and  suddenly  a  light  from  heaven  shined 
round  about  him,  and  falling  to  the  ground,  he  heard  a 
voice  saying  to  him:  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest 
thou  me?  Who  said:  Who  art  thou,  Lord?  And  He: 
I  am  Jesus  whom  thou  persecutest.  It  is  hard  for 
thee  to  kick  against  the  goad.  And  he  trembling 
and  astonished  said:  Lord,  what  wilt  thou  have  me 
to  do?"  (Acts  ix,  3-6).  Saul  had  kicked  against  the 
goad  by  gazing  with  blinded  eyes  on  the  miracles  of 
the  early  Church  and  the  wondrous  sanctity  of  her 
first-bom   children   and   by   turning  a   deaf   ear   to 


12  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Stephen's  inspired  words.  But  now  One  greater  than 
he,  has  hurled  him  to  the  ground  and  from  the  earth 
rises  the  new  man,  "Paul  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ, 
called  to  be  an  apostle,  separated  unto  the  gospel  of 
God"  (Romans  i,  i);  ''from  henceforth  let  no  man 
be  troublesome  to  me:  for  I  bear  the  brand-marks  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  in  my  body  "  (Galatians  vi,  17).  From 
that  time  on  Paul  was  God's  man  wholly  and  entirely. 
Outside  the  inspired  pages  of  Holy  Scripture  we 
find  other  songs  to  tell  us  of  this  flight.  In  shorter 
compass  the  poet  Archbishop,  Richard  Chenevix 
Trench,  briefly  yet  strongly  pictures  the  inevitable 
outcome  of  such  vagrancy: 

''If  there  had  anywhere  appeared  in  space 
Another  place  of  refuge  where  to  flee. 
My  soul  had  found  a  refuge  in  that  place 
And  not  in  Thee. 

But  only  when  I  found  in  earth  and  air 
And  heaven  and  hell  that  such  could  nowhere  be. 
That  I  could  not  flee  from  Thee  anywhere 
I  fled  to  Thee." 

Again  with  lesser  note  Father  Tabb  has  sung  in  one  of 
his  famous  quatrains,  "The  Wanderer": 

"  For  one  astray,  behold 

The  Master,  leaves  the  ninety  and  the  nine. 
Nor  rest  till,  love-controlled. 

The  Discord  moves  in  Harmony  divine. 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY  13 

Greater  than  either  of  these  is  the  strong  passage 
in  ''Idylls  of  the  King,"  where,  in  ''The  Holy  Grail," 
Sir  Percivale  tells  the  monk  Ambrosius  of  his  quest. 
The  parting  tournament  has  been  held  and  Percivale 
had  shown  unwonted  strength  of  arm  and  then  the 
morrow  came  and  he  went  forth  with  his  fellow- 
knights  to  seek  the  Holy  Grail: 

"And  I  was  lifted  up  in  heart,  and  thought 

Of  all  my  late-shown  prowess  in  the  lists, 

How  my  strong  lance  had  beaten  down  the  knights, 

So  many  and  famous  names;  and  never  yet 

Had  heaven  appeared  so  blue,  nor  earth  so  green. 

For  all  my  blood  danced  in  me,  and  I  knew 

That  I  should  light  upon  the  Holy  Grail. 

Thereafter  the  dark  warning  of  our  King, 

That  most  of  us  would  follow  wandering  fires. 

Came  like  a  driving  gloom  across  my  mind. 

Then  every  evil  word  I  had  spoken  once. 

And  every  evil  thought  I  had  thought  of  old. 

And  every  evil  deed  I  did, 

Awoke  and  cried,  'This  Quest  is  not  for  thee.' 

And  lifting  up  mine  eyes,  I  found  myself 

Alone,  and  in  a  land  of  sand  and  thorns. 

And  I  was  thirsty  even  unto  death; 

And  I,  too  cried,  'This  Quest  is  not  for  thee.' 

And  on  I  rode,  and  when  I  thought  my  thirst 
Would  slay  me,  saw  deep  lawns,  and  then  a  brook. 
With  one  sharp  rapid,  where  the  crisping  white 


14  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Play'd  ever  back  upon  the  sloping  wave, 
And  took  both  ear  and  eye;  and  o'er  the  brook 
Were  apple-trees,  and  apples  by  the  brook 
Fallen,  and  on  the  lawns.    'I  will  rest  here,' 
I  said,  'I  am  not  worthy  of  the  Quest;' 
But  even  while  I  drank  the  brook,  and  ate 
The  goodly  apples,  all  these  things  at  once 
Fell  into  dust,  and  I  was  left  alone. 
And  thirsting,  in  a  land  of  sand  and  thorns. 

And  then  behold  a  woman  at  a  door 
Spinning;  and  fair  the  house  whereby  she  sat, 
And  kind  the  woman's  eyes  and  innocent, 
And  all  her  bearing  gracious;  and  she  rose 
Opening  her  arms  to  meet  me,  as  who  should  say, 
'Rest  here;'  but  when  I  touched  her,  lo!  she,  too. 
Fell  into  dust  and  nothing,  and  the  house 
Became  no  better  than  a  broken  shed, 
And  in  it  a  dead  babe;  and  also  this 
Fell  into  dust,  and  I  was  left  alone. 

And  on  I  rode,  and  greater  was  my  thirst. 
Then  flash'd  a  yellow  gleam  across  the  world. 
And  where  it  smote  the  ploughshare  in  the  field. 
The  ploughman  left  his  ploughing,  and  fell  down 
Before  it;  where  it  glitter'd  on  her  pail. 
The  milkmaid  left  her  milking,  and  fell  down 
Before  it,  and  I  knew  not  why,  but  thought 
'The  sun  is  rising,'  tho'  the  sun  had  risen. 
Then  was  I  ware  of  one  that  on  me  moved 
In  golden  armor  mth  a  crown  of  gold 
About  a  casque  all  jewels;  and  his  horse 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY  15 

In  golden  armor  jewell'd  everywhere: 

And  on  the  splendor  came,  flashing  me  blind ; 

And  seem'd  to  me  the  Lord  of  all  the  world, 

Being  so  huge.    But  when  I  thought  he  meant 

To  crush  me,  moving  on  me,  lo !  he,  too, 

Open'd  his  arms  to  embrace  me  as  he  came, 

And  up  I  went  and  touch'd  him,  and  he,  too. 

Fell  into  dust,  and  I  was  left  alone. 

And  wear)ang  in  a  land  of  sand  and  thorns. 

And  I  rode  on  and  found  a  mighty  hill, 

And  on  the  top,  a  city  wall'd:  the  spires 

Prick'd  with  incredible  pinnacles  into  heaven 

And  by  the  gateway  stirr'd  a  crowd;  and  these 

Cried  to  me  climbing,  'Welcome,  Percivale! 

Thou  mightiest  and  thou  purest  among  men!' 

And  glad  was  I  and  clomb,  but  found  at  top 

No  man,  nor  any  voice.    And  thence  I  past 

Far  thro'  a  ruinous  city,  and  saw 

That  man  had  once  dwelt  there;  but  there  I  found 

Only  one  man  of  an  exceeding  age. 

'Where  is  that  goodly  company,'  said  I, 

'That  so  cried  out  upon  me?'  and  he  had 

Scarce  any  voice  to  answer,  and  yet  gasp'd, 

'  Whence  and  what  art  thou? '  and  even  as  he  spoke 

Fell  into  dust,  and  disappear'd,  and  I 

Was  left  alone  once  more,  and  cried  in  grief, 

'Lo,  if  I  find  the  Holy  Grail  itself 

And  touch  it,  it  will  crumble  into  dust.' 

And  thence  I  dropt  into  a  lowly  vale, 

Low  as  the  hill  was  high,  and  where  the  vale 


i6  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Was  lowest,  found  a  chapel,  and  thereby 

A  holy  hermit  in  a  hermitage. 

To  whom  I  told  my  phantoms,  and  he  said: 

*0  son,  thou  hast  not  true  humility, 

The  highest  virtue,  mother  of  them  all; 

For  when  the  Lord  of  all  things  made  Himself 

Naked  of  glory  for  His  mortal  change, 

"Take  thou  my  robe,"  she  said,  "  for  all  is  thine, " 

And  all  her  form  shone  forth  with  sudden  light 

So  that  the  angels  were  amazed,  and  she 

FoUow'd  him  down,  and  like  a  fl3ang  star 

Led  on  the  gray-hair'd  wisdom  of  the  East; 

But  her  thou  hast  not  known;  for  what  is  this 

Thou  thoughtest  of  thy  prowess  and  thy  sins? 

Thou  hast  not  lost  thyself  to  save  thyself 

As  Galahad.'" 

Lack  of  lowliness  of  mind  has  caused  all  things  to 
fade  upon  his  touch  and  has  robbed  them  of  the 
little  power  they  rightfully  had  to  give  some  comfort 
to  his  soul.  Undue  love  of  self  works  havoc  in  the 
soul  nor  is  the  Holy  Grail  seen  by  Percivale,  until 
Galahad — 

"Drew  me,  with  power  upon  me,  till  I  grew 
One  with  him  to  believe  as  he  believed." 

Organically  blending  throughout  the  poem  with 
this  dominant  idea  of  God's  persistency  in  '^  hound- 
ing" the  soul  not  to  death  but  to  life  is  the  thought 
that  God  afficts  man  in  order  to  bring  him  back  to 
Him.    This  is  written  large  on  almost  every  page  of 


INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY  17 

Scripture  yet  nowhere  perhaps  more  dearly  or  more 
poignantly  than  in  the  threnody  of  Jeremias  (Lamen- 
tations iii,  1-17,  22-23,  31-33)- 

"I  am  the  man  that  see  my  poverty 

By  the  rod  of  His  indignation. 
He  hath  led  me  and  brought  me  into  darkness, 

And  not  into  light. 
Only  against  me  He  hath  turned  and  turned  again 

His  hand  all  the  day. 
My  skin  and  my  flesh  He  hath  made  old, 

He  hath  broken  my  bones. 
He  hath  built  round  about  me,  and  He  hath  compassed  me 

With  gall  and  labor. 
He  hath  set  me  in  dark  places 

As  those  that  are  dead  forever. 
He  hath  built  against  me  round  about  that  I  may  not  get 
out; 

He  hath  made  my  fetters  heavy. 
Yea,  and  when  I  cry  and  entreat. 

He  hath  shut  out  my  prayer. 
He  hath  shut  up  my  way  with  square  stones. 

He  hath  turned  my  paths  upside  down. 
He  is  become  to  me  as  a  bear  lying  in  wait. 

As  a  Hon  in  secret  places. 
He  hath  turned  aside  my  paths  and  broken  me  in  pieces. 

He  hath  made  me  desolate. 
He  hath  bent  His  bow  and  set  me 

As  a  mark  for  His  arrows. 
He  hath  shot  into  my  veins 

The  daughters  of  His  quiver. 


.1!^ 


V 


i8  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

I  am  made  a  derision  to  all  my  people, 

Their  song  all  the  day  long. 
He  hath  filled  me  with  bitterness, 

He  hath  inebriated  me  with  wormwood. 
And  He  hath  broken  my  teeth  one  by  one, 

He  hath  fed  me  with  ashes. 
And  my  soul  is  removed  far  off  from  peace; 

I  have  forgotten  good  things. 

The  mercies  of  the  Lord,  that  we  are  not  consumed; 

Because  His  commiserations  have  not  failed. 
They  are  new  every  morning; 

Great  is  Thy  faithfulness. 

For  the  Lord  will  not  cast  off 

Forever. 
For  if  He  will  cast  off.  He  will  also  have  mercy 

According  to  the  multitude  of  His  mercies. 
For  He  hath  not  willingly  afflicted 

Nor  cast  off  the  children  of  men." 

There  the  whole  story  is  told  as  it  ought  to  be  told. 
Sorrow  and  pain  and  disappointment  are  sent  by  God 
for  one's  good,  and  when  they  are  recognized  as  so  sent, 
they  lead  the  soul  back  to  God's  welcoming  arms.  It  is 
a  strong  grace  from  God  when  we  can  see  that  all  our 
trials  come  upon  us  because  He  wills  it  so,  that  they 
are  all  ''shade  of  His  hand  outstretched  caressingly"; 
a  blessed  hour  when  with  true  humility  we  recognize 
and  admit  our  waywardness  and  yield — and  then 
hear  the  welcome:  "Rise,  clasp  my  hand  and  come." 


THE  HOUND   OF  HEAVEN 

I  FLED  Hini,  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  arches  of  the  years; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  labyrinthine  ways 

Of  my  own  mind;  and  in  the  mist  of  tears 
I  hid  from  Him,  and  under  running  laughter.  5 

Up  vistaed  hopes,  I  sped; 
And  ^ot,  precipitated 
Adown  Titanic  glooms  of  chasmed  fears, 

From   those  strong  Feet   that  followed,   followed 
after. 
But  with  unhurrying  chase,  10 

And  unperturbed  pace, 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 
They  beat — and  a  Voice  beat 
More  instant  than  the  Feet — 
"All  things  betray  thee,  who  betrayest  Me."  15 

I  pleaded,  outlaw- wise, 
By  many  a  hearted  casement,  curtained  red, 

TrelHsed  with  intertwining  charities; 
(For,  though  I  knew  His  love  Who  foUowed, 

Yet  was  I  sore  adread  20 

19 


20  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Lest,  having  Him,  I  must  have  naught  beside) 
But,  if  one  little  casement  parted  wide, 

The  gust  of  His  approach  would  clash  it  to. 
Fear  wist  not  to  evade  as  Love  wist  to  pursue. 
Across  the  margent  of  the  world  I  fled,  25 

And  troubled  the  gold  gateways  of  the  stars, 
Smiting  for  shelter  on  their  clanged  bars; 
Fretted  to  dulcet  jars 
And  silvern  chatter  the  pale  ports  o'  the  moon. 
I  said  to  dawn :  Be  sudden — to  eve :  Be  soon ;  30 

With  thy  young  skiey  blossoms  heap  me  over 
From  this  tremendous  Lover! 
Float  thy  vague  veil  about  me,  lest  He  see! 

I  tempted  all  His  servitors,  but  to  find 
My  own  betrayal  in  their  constancy,  35 

In  faith  to  Him  their  fickleness  to  me, 

Their  traitorous  trueness,  and  their  loyal  deceit. 
To  all  swift  things  for  swiftness  did  I  sue; 
Clung  to  the  whistling  mane  of  every  wind. 

But  whether  they  swept,  smoothly  fleet,        40 
The  long  savannahs  of  the  blue; 

Or  w^hether.  Thunder-driven, 
They  clanged  His  chariot  'thwart  a  heaven. 
Flashy  with  flying  lightnings  round  the  spurn  o'  their 
feet:— 
Fear  wist  not  to  evade  as  Love  wist  to  pursue.         45 
Still  with  unhurrying  chase. 
And  unperturbed  pace. 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN  21 

Came  on  the  following  Feet, 
And  a  Voice  above  their  beat —  50 

''Naught  shelters  thee,  who  wilt  not  shelter 
Me." 

I  sought  no  more  that,  after  which  I  strayed, 

In  face  of  man  or  maid; 
But  still  within  the  little  children's  eyes 

Seems  something,  something  that  replies,        55 
They  at  least  are  for  me,  surely  for  me ! 
I  turned  me  to  them  very  wistfully; 
But  just  as  their  young  eyes  grew  sudden  fair 

With  dawning  answers  there, 
Their  angel  plucked  them  from  me  by  the  hair.        60 
''Come  then,  ye  other  children,  Nature's — share 
With  me"  (said  I)  "your  delicate  fellowship; 

Let  me  greet  you  lip  to  lip, 

Let  me  twine  with  you  caresses, 

Wantoning  65 

With  our  Lady-Mother's  vagrant  tresses, 
Banqueting 

With  her  in  her  wind- walled  palace. 

Underneath  her  azured  dais, 

Quafhng,  as  your  taintless  way  is,  70 

From  a  chalice 
Lucent-weeping  out  of  the  dayspring." 

So  it  was  done: 
/  in  their  delicate  fellow^ship  was  one — 
Drew  the  bolt  of  Nature's  secrecies.  75 


22  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

/  knew  all  the  swift  impor tings 
On  the  wilful  face  of  skies; 
I  knew  how  the  clouds  arise 
Spumed  of  the  wild  sea-snortings; 
All  that's  born  or  dies  80 

Rose  and  drooped  with — made  them  shapers 
Of  mine  own  moods,  or  wailful  or  divine — 
With  them  joyed  and  was  bereaven. 
I  was  heavy  with  the  even, 
When  she  lit  her  glimmering  tapers  85 

Round  the  day's  dead  sanctities. 
I  laughed  in  the  morning's  eyes. 
I  triumphed  and  I  saddened  with  all  weather, 

Heaven  and  I  wept  together, 
And  its  sweet  tears  were  salt  with  mortal  mine;       90 
Against  the  red  throb  of  its  sunset-heart 
I  laid  my  own  to  beat. 
And  share  commingling  heat; 
But  not  by  that,  by  that,  was  eased  my  human  smart. 
In  vain  my  tears  were  wet  on  Heaven's  grey  cheek.    95 
For,  ah !  we  know  not  what  each  other  says, 

These  things  and  I ;  in  sound  I  speak — 
Their  sound  is  but  their  stir,  they  speak  by  silences. 
Nature,  poor  stepdame,  cannot  slake  my  drouth ; 

Let  her,  if  she  would  owe  me,  100 

Drop  yon  blue  bosom-veil  of  sky,  and  show  me 

The  breasts  o'  her  tenderness: 
Never  did  any  milk  of  hers  once  bless 
My  thirsting  mouth. 


^^ 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN  23 

Nigh  and  nigh  draws  the  chase,         105 
With  unperturbed  pace, 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 
And  past  those  noised  Feet 
A  Voice  comes  yet  more  fleet — 
"Lo!  naught  contents  thee,  who  content^st  not 
Me.'^  no 

Naked  I  wait  Thy  love's  uplifted  stroke! 

My  harness  piece  by  piece  Thou  hast  hewn  from  me, 

And  smitten  me  to  my  knee; 

I  am  defenceless  utterly. 

I  slept,  methinks,  and  woke  115 

And,  slowly  gazing,  find  me  stripped  in  sleep. 
In  the  rash  lustihead  of  my  young  powers, 

I  shook  the  pillaring  hours 
And  pulled  my  life  upon  me;  grimed  with  smears, 
I  stand  amid  the  dust  o'  the  mounded  years —  1 20 

My  mangled  youth  lies  dead  beneath  the  heap, 
My  days  have  crackled  and  gone  up  in  smoke. 
Have  puffed  and  burst  as  sun-starts  on  a  stream. 

•   Yea,  faileth  now  even  dream 
The  dreamer,  and  the  lute  the  lutanist;  125 

Even  the  linked  fantasies,  in  whose  blossomy  twist 
I  swung  the  earth  a  trinket  at  my  wrist, 
Are  yielding;  cords  of  all  too  weak  account 
For  earth  with  heavy  griefs  so  overplussed. 

Ah!  is  Thy  love  indeed  130 

A  weed,  albeit  an  amaranthine  weed, 


24  THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

SufiFering  no  flowers  except  its  own  to  mount? 
Ah!  must — 
Designer  Infinite! — 
Ah!  must  Thou  char  the  wood  ere  Thou  canst  limn 
with  it?  \-  135 

My  freshness  spent  its  wavering  shower  i'  the  dust; 
And  now  my  heart  is  as  a  broken  fount, 
Wherein  tear-drippings  stagnate,  spilt  down  ever 

From  the  dank  thoughts  that  shiver 
Upon  the  sighful  branches  of  my  mind.  140 

Such  is;  what  is  to  be? 
The  pulp  so  bitter,  how  shall  taste  the  rind? 
I  dimly  guess  what  Time  in  mists  confounds; 
Yet  ever  and  anon  a  trumpet  sounds 
From  the  hid  battlements  of  Eternity;  145 

Those  shaken  mists  a  space  unsettle,  then 
Round  the  half-glimpsed  turrets  slowly  wash  again; 

But  not  ere  him  who  summoneth 

I  first  have  seen,  enwound 
With  glooming  robes  purpureal,  cypress-crowned ;    1 50 
His  name  I  know,  and  what  his  trumpet  saith. 
Whether  man's  heart  or  life  it  be  which  yields 

Thee  harvest,  must  Thy  harvest  fields 

Be  dunged  with  rotten  death? 
Now  of  that  long  pursuit  155 

Comes  on  at  hand  the  bruit; 
That  Voice  is  round  me  like  a  bursting  sea; 

''And  is  thy  earth  so  marred, 

Shattered  in  shard  on  shard? 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN  25 

Lo,  all  things  fly  thee,  for  thou  fliest  Me!  160 

Strange,  piteous,  futile  thing! 
Wherefore  should  any  set  thee  love  apart? 
Seeing  none  but  I  make  much  of  naught"  (He  said), 
^'And  human  love  needs  human  mwiting: 

How  hast  thou  merited —  165 

Of  all  man's  clotted  clay,  the  dingiest  clot? 

Alack,  thou  knowest  not 
How  little  worthy  of  any  love  thou  art ! 
Whom  wilt  thou  find  to  love  ignoble  thee, 

Save  Me,  save  only  Me?  170 

All  which  I  took  from  thee  I  did  but  take. 

Not  for  thy  harms, 
But  just  that  thou  might'st  seek  it  in  My  arms. 

All  which  thy  child's  mistake 
Fancies  as  lost,  I  have  stored  for  thee  at  home:      175 

Rise,  clasp  My  hand,  and  come." 

Halts  by  me  that  footfall : 
Is  my  gloom,  after  all. 
Shade  of  His  hand,  outstretched  caressingly? 

"Ah,  fondest,  blindest,  weakest,  180 

I  am  He  Whom  thou  seekest! 
Thou  dravest  love  from  thee,  who  dravest  Me." 


NOTES 

Hound  of  Heaven. — With  felicitous  grace  and  reverential 
delicacy  Thompson  gives  Our  Lord  an  unwonted  and  daring 
title  and  throughout  the  poem  never  once  explicitly  refers  to 
the  metaphor.  A  lesser  writer  would  inevitably  have  rendered 
the  comparison  very  repellent.  The  fuller  development  is  left 
to  our  own  devotional,  inward  thoughts. 

Thompson,  of  course,  had  Scriptural  warrant  for  using  such 
t5^e  of  comparisons  from  the  animal  world.  No  phrase  of 
Holy  Writ  is  more  current  than  "the  Lamb  of  God"  (St.  John 
i,  29,  36;  Apoc.  V,  12,  vi,  16,  vii,  14).  Each  Holy  Week  we 
hear  Isaias'  plaint  (Isaias  liii,  7):  "He  shall  be  led  as  a  sheep 
to  the  slaughter  and  shall  be  dumb  as  a  lamb  before  his  shearer," 
which  thought  is  repeated  in  Acts  viii,  ^2.  Opening  the  Apoc- 
alypse once  more  we  find  another  metaphor  (Apocalypse  v,  5) : 
"And  one  of  the  Ancients  said  to  me:  "Weep  not;  behold  the 
lion  of  the  tribe  of  Juda,  the  root  of  David,  hath  prevailed  to 
open  the  book."  Lastly  we  find  another  metaphor  in  St.  Paul 
(Hebrews  xiii,  11-12),  where  with  true  and  sound  literary 
instinct  he  applies  the  symbolism  of  the  offering  but  not  the 
name  to  Our  Lord,  thus  reversing  the  present  process  of  Thomp- 
son: "For  the  bodies  of  those  beasts,  whose  blood  is  brought 
into  the  holies  by  the  high  priest  for  sin,  are  burned  without 
the  camp.  Wherefore  Jesus  also,  that  He  might  sanctify  the 
people  by  His  own  blood,  suffered  without  the  gate." 

Lines  1-15 

With  the  bold  inclusive  sweep  of  genius,  Thompson  in  these 
first  verses  outlines  the  whole  scope  of  the  poem  and  suggests 

27 


28  NOTES 

unmistakably  its  outcome.  The  merely  material  picture  of 
these  lines  is  noteworthy:  a  branching  path,  a  portico,  a  maze, 
a  mist,  a  sparkling  stream,  a  forest  glade  and  lastly  a  vast 
canyon. 

Line  i.  With  another  masterly  stroke,  we  are  given  the 
scope  of  the  poem  in  the  first  three  words  ^^  I  fled  Him."  That 
this  is  the  central  thought  is  still  further  accentuated  by  the 
presence  of  the  comma  after  "Him,"  and  the  repetition  of  the 
phrase  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  and  third  lines. 

The  reason  of  the  flight  is  given  us  in  lines  19-21,  and  it  is 
a  misguided  love  of  self  not  catching  even  the  surface  meaning 
of  those  compelling  words  of  Our  Lord:  "He  that  will  save  his 
Hfe,  shall  lose  it:  and  he  that  shall  lose  his  life  for  My  sake  shall 
find  it"  (St.  Matthew  xvi,  25).  St.  Augustine  says  so  well: 
"Accordingly,  two  cities  have  been  formed  by  two  loves:  the 
earthly,  by  the  love  of  self  even  to  the  contempt  of  God;  the 
heavenly,  by  the  love  of  God  even  to  the  contempt  of  self. 
The  former,  in  a  word,  glories  in  itself;  the  latter  in  the  Lord" 
(City  of  God,  Bk.  XIV,  28).  Yet  throughout  the  poem  it  is 
quite  essential  to  remember  that  there  is  no  suggestion  of  un- 
holy love.  It  is  all  a  misguided  quest,  a  seeking  for  heart's  ease 
there  where  it  cannot  be  found.  In  the  end  the  cheated  soul 
win  bewail  its  folly  as  did  the  Jews  of  old,  who  had  put  their 
trust  in  Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  only  to  find,  in  the  defeat  of  these, 
their  own  undoing.  "And  they  shall  be  afraid,  and  ashamed  of 
Ethiopia,  their  hope,  and  of  Egypt,  their  glory.  And  the 
inhabitants  of  this  isle  shall  say:  "Lo,  this  was  our  hope,  to 
whom  we  fled  for  help  to  deliver  us  from  the  face  of  the  As- 
syrians, and  how  shall  we  be  able  to  escape?"     (Isaias  xx, 

5,6). 

Nights  and  Days. — Not  merely  "always,"  but  through 
sunshine  and  darkness,  both  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual. 
Such  indeed  is  the  underlying  thought  of  lines  1-9. 

Line  2.  Arches  of  the  Years. — Life  is  pictured  as  a  journey 


NOTES  29 

down  a  long  colonnade,  each  arch  of  which  is  a  year.  By  such 
imagery,  the  poet  conveys  to  us  the  fact  that  the  flight  from 
God,  though  swift  in  action,  was  not  swift  in  time,  for  it  length- 
ened out  into  years.    Compare  line  9  and  note. 

Line  3.  Labyrinthine  Ways.— /The  mind's  unlimited  capac- 
ity of  grasping  and  dwelHng  on  objects  without  number  seemed 
to  give  hope  of  escape.    Compare  "losing  one's  self  in  thought." 

Many  a  soul  has  tried  to  lose  sight  of  God  by  study  and 
research,  and  some  have — all  too  unfortunately — succeeded 
in  losing  Him  in  perplexed  and  specious  reasonings  into  which 
they  have  wandered  as  into  a  labyrinth. 

Line  4.  Tennyson  (In  Memoriam,  Canto  xxiv)  speaks  of 
"the  haze  of  grief."  Grief  and  its  subsequent  tears  drives 
many  a  man  to  God,  for  as  Dante  says:  "Sorrow  re-marries  us 
to  God";  but  others  again  it  hurries  away  from  God  and  leads 
them  to  seek  help  from  fellow-creatures  alone,  as  did  the  Jews 
when  threatened  by  the  Assyrians:  "Wo  to  them  that  go  down 
to  Egypt  for  help,  trusting  in  horses,  and  putting  their  con- 
fidence in  chariots,  because  they  are  many;  and  in  horsemen, 
because  they  are  very  strong;  and  have  not  trusted  in  the  Holy 
One  of  Israel,  and  have  not  sought  after  the  Lord.  .  .  .  Egypt 
is  man  and  not  God:  and  their  horses  flesh,  and  not  spirit; 
and  the  Lord  shall  put  down  His  hand,  and  the  helper  shall 
fall,  and  he  that  is  helped  shall  fall  and  they  shall  all  be  con- 
founded together.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord  to  me:  Like  as  the 
lion  roareth,  and  the  lion's  whelp  upon  his  prey,  and  when  a 
multitude  of  shepherds  shall  come  against  him,  he  will  not  fear 
at  their  voice,  nor  be  afraid  of  their  multitude,  so  shall  the 
Lord  of  hosts  come  down  to  fight  upon  Mount  Sion,  and  upon 
the  hills  thereof.  As  birds  flying,  so  will  the  Lord  of  hosts 
protect  Jerusalem,  protecting  and  delivering,  passing  over  and 
saving"  (Isaias  xxxi,  i,  3-5). 

Homer  (Iliad  iii,  10-12)  gives  a  fine  picture  of  the  hiding 
power  of  the  mist:  "Even  as  when  the  south  wind  sheddeth 


30  NOTES 

mist  over  the  crests  of  a  mountain,  mist  unwelcome  to  the 
shepherd,  but  to  the  robber  better  than  night,  and  a  man  can 
see  no  further  than  he  casteth  a  stone.  .  .  ."  (Lang,  Leaf,  & 
Myers  Translation).  It  was  the  soul's  endeavor  to  hide  behind 
such  hopeless,  stubborn  grief  that  hung  between  God  and  itself 
like  a  cloud. 

Lines  4-5.  Tears — Laughter. — Pain  and  pleasure  alike 
were  sought  as  guides  away  from  God;  but  neither  could  dull 
the  fundamental  yearning,  coextensive  with  itself,  of  the  human 
soul  for  God.  This  elemental  craving  for  complete  happiness, 
ever  elusive  in  this  world,  where  sunshine  and  shadow  play 
upon  us  so  constantly,  is  one  of  the  strong  rational  proofs  for  a 
life  beyond  the  grave  where  God  will  be  possessed  unendingly. 

Line  5.  Running  Laughter. — We  often  speak  of  a  smile 
"rippling''  over  one's  face. 

Line  6.  Vistaed  Hopes. — Hopes  which  when  realized  would 
last,  not  for  a  moment  and  then  fade  away,  but  would  reach 
out  into  time  as  vistas  reach  out  into  space.  Thus  when  we 
gaze  with  longing  towards  such  hopes,  they  seem  "vistaed." 

Lines  6-7.  Note  striking  contrast — Up  vistaed  hopes  I  sped, 
and  shot,  etc.  When  hope  lights  our  way,  our  journey  is  indeed 
swift;  but  who  has  not  felt  the  hurtling  force  of  gloom  and 
desolation,  when  from  the  heights  of  hope  we  are  "shot"  into 
the  abyss  of  "chasmed  fears"  with  heart-sickening  speed?  It 
is  of  this  the  Psalmist  speaks  (Psalm  xxix,  6-8) : 

"For  wrath  is  in  His  indignation, 

And  life  in  His  good  will. 
In  the  evening  weeping  shall  have  place, 

And  in  the  morning  gladness. 
And  in  my  abundance  I  said : 

'I  shall  never  be  moved.' 
O  Lord,  in  Thy  favor,  Thou  gavest  strength  to  my  beauty, 

Thou  turnedst  away  Thy  face  from  me,   and  I  became 
troubled." 


NOTES  31 

Note  further  that  when  hope  led  him  on,  the  motion  of  traveling 
was  his  own — "I  sped,"  but  when  grief  came  upon  him  he  was 
hurled  with  a  motion  not  his  own.  Fear  being  "the  yielding 
up  of  the  powers  of  succour  from  thought,"  the  soul  is  no 
longer  in  control  of  its  actions. 

Line  8.  Adown. — Conveys  the  impression  of  falling  con- 
tinually and  ever  lower.  The  onomatopoeia  of  the  line  is  note- 
worthy. 

Titantic  Glooms. — Glooms  that  were  not  only  broad  and 
high  and  so  enveloping  that  into  their  nether  darkness  no  ray 
of  hope  could  steal,  but  almost  brutish  in  their  aggressiveness 
against  the  soul.  Then  it  is  that  soul-paralysis  is  wont  to 
come,  unless  the  hght  of  faith  has  been  kept  burning  in  our 
hearts  "as  a  light  shining  in  a  dark  place"  (2  Peter  i,  19). 
This  line  recalls  Dante's  Inferno  and  Dore's  illustrations 
thereof.  Titanic  is  meant  undoubtedly  to  recall  the  war  of 
the  Titans  against  the  gods,  so  frequently  read  in  pagan  my- 
thology. 

Line  g.  Strong  Feet. — By  a  happy  use  of  "transferred 
epithet,"  strong  is  appHed  to  the  feet  rather  than  to  the  whole 
man.  "Strong"  foretells  the  end  of  the  pursuit,  for  "the  strong 
win  the  race." 

Followed,  Followed. — The  repetition  continues  to  convey 
subtly  the  idea  of  a  long  and  persistent  pursuit.  (Cf.  line  2  and 
note.) 

Lines  10-15 

Three  several  times  (lines  10-15,  46-51,  105-110),  does  this 
refrain  occur;  and  it  is  in  great  measure  by  means  of  this  subtle 
suggestion  that  we  are  made  aware  of  the  progress  of  the  pur- 
suit, until  we  read  in  line  177  "Halts  by  me  that  footfall." 

The  slow  majestic  rhythm  of  these  lines  is  in  itself  symbolic 
of  the  poise  of  the  Pursuer,  and  markedly  so,  coming  as  they  do 
after  the  swift  sweep  of  the  preceding  lines.    • 


32  NOTES 

As  we  read  this  refrain  and  grasp  the  central  idea  of  the 
poem,  we  may  recall  the  words  of  the  Psalmist  (Psalm  xviii, 
6,7): 

"He  hath  rejoiced  as  a  giant  to  run  the  way: 

His  going  out  is  from  the  end  of  heaven, 
And  his  circuit  even  to  the  end  thereof: 

And  there  is  none  that  can  hide  himself  from  his  heat." 

Line  lo.  Note  the  oxymorons  in  this  and  the  following  lines. 

Line  12.  Deliberate  Speed. — The  pursuit  was  deliberately 
entered  upon,  and  the  speed  was  not  precipitate  or  impetuous. 
The  result  is  inevitable.  The  pursuit  of  the  soul  by  God  is  not 
the  result  of  a  chance  whim,  for  to  predicate  such  of  God  were 
contradictory  and  blasphemous:  "Yea,  I  have  loved  thee  with 
an  everlasting  love.  Therefore  have  I  drawn  thee,  taking  pity 
on  thee"  (Jeremias  xxxi,  3). 

Instancy. — Cf.  note  on  line  14. 

Line  13.  A  Voice  Beat. — Its  beat  was  as  rhythmical  as  man's 
own  heart,  and  stirred  up  within  him  the  beat  of  the  deathless 
voice  of  conscience. 

Line  14.  Instant. — In  its  radical  sense  of  pressing  tipan, 
urgent  (Latin  in  &  sio).  Thompson  was  fond  of  bringing  words 
back  to  their  original  meaning.  Compare  lines  49,  66.  (This 
tendency  is  evidenced  by  many  modern  writers  and  is  one  of  the 
ways  by  which  a  language  rejuvenates  itself,  e.  g.,  "the  in- 
tolerable face  of  God,"  where  intolerable  is  used  in  its  root 
sense,  shorn  of  any  acquired,  sinister  meaning.) 

Line  ij.  The  words  are  not  understood  by  the  soul  nor  does 
it  practically  realize  that  "it  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick  against 
the  goad"  (Acts  ix,  5),  which  in  every  case  is  the  grace  of  God 
urging  on  to  greater  love  of  Him  alone.  It  has  yet  to  learn 
under  the  flail  of  suffering  and  withered  hopes  that  "there  is  no 
wisdom,  there  is  no  prudence,  there  is  no  counsel  against  the 
Lord"  (Proverbs  xxi,  30).    Then  and  then  only  will  the  soul 


NOTES  33 

cry  out,  "Too  late  have  I  learned  to  love  thee";  and  shall  warn 
other  souls:  "Remember  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youth, 
before  the  time  of  affliction  come,  and  the  years  draw  nigh  of 
which  thou  shalt  say:  They  please  me  not:  Before  the  sun,  and 
the  light,  and  the  moon,  and  the  stars  be  darkened,  and  the 
clouds  return  after  the  rain  .  .  .  before  the  silver  cord  be 
broken,  and  the  golden  fillet  shrink  back,  and  the  pitcher  be 
crushed  at  the  fountain,  and  the  wheel  be  broken  upon  the 
cistern,  and  the  dust  return  into  the  earth,  from  whence  it  was, 
and  the  spirit  return  to  God,  who  gave  it.  Vanity  of  van- 
ities .  .  .  and  all  things  are  vanity"  (Ecclesiastes  xii,  1-7). 

Betray. — By  refusing  to  harbor  and  conceal.  In  this  line 
the  poet  gives  us  a  distinct  fore-view  of  the  outcome  of  the 
pursuit. 

f  Lines  16-24 

The  soul  is  pictured  as  pleading  for  shelter  at  a  human  heart, 
which  is  likened  to  a  cottage,  with  little  casement  windows. 
The  human  heart  is  indeed  small,  for  it  is  earthly  and  therefore 
only  a  poor  "clay-shuttered"  cottage,  doomed  one  day  to 
house  devouring  worms  as  its  latest  dwellers. 

Line  16.  I  Pleaded. — There  was  all  the  poignancy  of  a 
lonely  soul  crowded  into  that  cry  for  harborage. 

Outlaw-Wise. — Because  he  was  fleeing  from  Him  who  is 
Justice  itself  and  to  whom  all  order  is  due,  a  fugitive  from 
Divine  Law  and  the  God  who  would  make  him  a  prisoner  of 
love. 

Line  17.  Compare  "Arras'd  in  purple  like  the  house  of 
kings"  (An  Anthem  of  Earth).  These  and  other  metaphors 
concerning  the  heart  are  thought  by  some  to  be  due  to  Thomp- 
son's study  of  medicine.  Compare  the  concluding  lines  of 
"An  Arab  Love  Song": 

"And   thou — what   needest   with   thy   tribes'   black   tents 
Who  hast  the  red  pavilion  of  my  heart?" 


34  NOTES 

Line  i8.  Intertwining  Charities. — So  manifold  and  so 
interlacing  were  these  charities  that  they  quite  covered  the 
whole  heart,  thus  they  made  it  susceptible  to  every  appeal 
and  promised  a  secure  and  inviolate  refuge  once  the  assured 
admittance  was  gained.  The  casement,  being  here  the  human 
heart,  is  trellised  not  merely  with  the  vine  of  the  love  of  God 
but  also  with  the  love  of  creatures.  We  may  paraphrase  and 
read:  I  knew  His  love  but  felt  that  if  I  surrendered  directly  to 
Him,  there  would  be  nothing  for  self;  and  so  I  sought  a  com- 
promise in  a  heart  where  there  were  heavenly  and  earthly 
loves  interlaced,  where  I  could  love  God  in  the  creature  and 
the  creature  too,  and  there  find  a  reciprocated  love  from  that 
creature. 

Line  ig.  I  Knew. — This  knowledge  was  as  yet  purely  the- 
oretical and  imperfect.  Such  knowledge  every  Christian,  even 
the  most  ignorant,  possesses.  When,  however,  it  becomes 
practical,  then  a  vitalizing  force  is  thrown  into  life  which  carries 
on  swiftly  to  the  stark  grandeur  of  a  saint. 

Line  20.  All  have  heard  the  words  of  God:  "I  am  the  Lord 
thy  God,  mighty,  jealous"  (Exodus  xx,  5),  and  again:  "The 
Lord  His  name  is  Jealous;  He  is  a  jealous  God"  (Exodus  xxxiv, 
14).  Again  they  have  listened  time  and  again  to  the  words  of 
our  Lord  Himself:  "If  any  man  come  to  Me  and  hate  not  his 
father  and  mother  and  wife  and  children  and  brothers  and 
sisters,  yea  and  his  own  life  also,  he  cannot  be  My  disciple" 
(St.  Luke  xiv,  26).  All  have  heard  indeed,  but  many  have 
misread  these  words.  Even  though  we  had  never  heard  His 
other  commands:  "Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  that 
thou  mayest  be  long-lived  upon  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy 
God  will  give  thee"  (Exodus  xx,  12),  and  again:  "Husbands 
love  your  wives,  as  Christ  also  loved  the  Church  and  delivered 
Himself  up  for  it"  (Ephesians  v,  25);  even  though  we  were 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  to  "hate,"  in  the  language  which  our 
Lord  spoke,  in  such  setting  means  "to  love  less"  (as  in  Mai- 


NOTES  35 

achias  i,  2-3,  "I  have  loved  Jacob  but  have  hated  Esau"); 
sound  spiritual  reasoning  would  tell  us  that  He  did  not  mean 
to  undo  all  natural  or  acquired  love.  What  He  did  mean  was: 
I.  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  thy  whole  heart 
and  with  thy  whole  soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength  and  with  all 
thy  mind"  (St.  Luke  x,  27).  If  any  lower  love  runs  counter  to 
this  love  of  God,  we  must  be  done  with  the  baser  love;  2.  That, 
though  we  do  love  others,  we  must  love  all  in  God  and  for  God, 
i.  e.,  love  them  because  He  commands  us  to  love  them,  and  as 
He  commands  us,  always  remembering  that  any  goodness  or 
holiness  or  excellence  we  find  in  them  is  but  a  faint  reflection  of 
His  infinite  perfections:  "They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
and  Thou,  O  Lord  art  more  than  they"  (In  Memoriam). 
"God  gave  us  love,  something  to  love  He  only  lent." 

It  is  a  wholly  wrong  grasp  of  this  principle  that  makes  many 
beginners  in  the  spiritual  Hfe  experience  that  fear  of  which 
Thompson  here  tells.  A  foreseen  isolation  of  loneliness  then 
makes  the  spiritual  life  an  unbearable  yoke  to  them.  Unques- 
tionably for  those  who  find  it  in  their  hearts  to  strive  for  the 
higher  planes  of  holiness  and  imperatively  for  all  who  have 
vowed  themselves  to  a  religious  life  of  celibacy,  much  pruning 
and  cutting  of  earthly  affections  is  necessary.  Each  such  is 
indeed — 

"Chosen  of  God  his  lonely  way  to  wend. 

Out  from  all  glare  and  glory  to  the  shade, 
The  shadow  of  the  Cross  where  saints  are  made?" 

Yes,  it  seems  a  lonely  way  to  those  who  know  not  the  music 
that  is  in  the  heart  as  it  travels  alone  with  God.  It  is  not, 
however,  beginners  only  who  feel  this  dread  of  God.  Even  the 
Saints  at  times  were  wont  to  struggle  against  God,  especially 
in  His  more  marvelous  manifestations  of  special  affection. 
Thus  St.  Theresa  tells  us  of  her  struggle  against  being  mirac- 
ulously elevated  off  the  ground  into  the  air  while  in  prayer: 


36  NOTES 

"I  repeat  it;  you  feel  and  see  yourself  carried  away  you  know 
not  whither.  For  though  we  feel  how  delicious  it  is,  yet  the 
weakness  of  our  nature  makes  us  afraid  at  first  ...  so  trying 
is  it  that  I  would  very  often  resist  and  exert  all  my  strength, 
particularly  at  those  times  when  the  rapture  was  coming  on 
me  in  pubHc.  I  did  so,  too,  very  often  when  I  was  alone,  be- 
cause I  was  afraid  of  delusions.  Occasionally  I  was  able,  by 
great  efforts,  to  make  a  sHght  resistance,  but  afterwards  I  was 
worn  out,  like  a  person  who  had  been  contending  with  a  strong 
giant;  at  other  times  it  was  impossible  to  resist  at  all."  (The 
Month,  April,  19 19,  p.  274.) 

Line  21.  Sore  Adread. — ^There  is  no  pain  like  to  this  anguish 
of  the  soul  that  is  face  to  face  with  a  great  renunciation  for 
God  and  finds  not  within  itself  sufficient  generosity  to  make  the 
surrender.  "He  is  wise  in  heart  and  mighty  in  strength.  Who 
hath  resisted  Him  and  hath  found  peace?"  (Job  ix,  4).  "Too 
grasping  is  that  heart  for  which  God  is  not  enough."  Unhap- 
pily the  pui-view  of  the  soul  is  often  so  straightly  shortened  by 
the  flickering  lights  and  shadows  of  this  vale  of  tears,  that  it 
cannot  realize  that  it  is  well  to  say,  "I'd  rather  walk  in  the  dark 
with  God,  than  go  alone  in  the  hght."  Indeed,  when  God  is 
not  with  us  all  light  is  real  darkness;  whereas  God,  Eternal 
Light,  makes  the  noon  of  night  as  the  brightest  summer  sky. 

Naught  Beside. — In  many  places  in  the  Old  Testament 
(e.  g.,  Genesis  xvii,  i.  Exodus  vi,  3,  etc.),  God  is  called  in  the 
Hebrew  text  "EL  SCHADDAI"  "God  our  Sufficiency."  Such 
He  is  indeed  and  He  alone,  and  such  He  will  prove  to  be  to  us 
in  Heaven;  but  here  in  this  land  of  exile  our  faith  grows  dull  at 
times  and  we  would  fain  find  "our  sufficiency"  in  things  of 
sense  and  of  time. 

Commenting  on  this  sacred  name,  the  learned  and  saintly 
CorneUus  a  Lapide,  S.  J.,  writes  (Genesis  xvii,  i): 

"  God  therefore  is  our  SCHADDAI,  who  satisfies,  who  sates 
each  craving  of  ours  with  good  things.    Why,  then,  unhappy 


NOTES  37 

man,  do  you  stray  through  many  things,  seek  rest  and  do  not 
find  it?  Do  you  love  riches?  You  will  not  be  satisfied,  for 
they  are  not  SCHADDAI.  Do  you  love  honors?  You  will 
not  be  filled,  for  they  are  not  SCHADDAI.  Do  you  love  the 
gracefulness  and  the  beauty  of  the  body?  They  are  not  your 
SCHADDAI.  Oh,  heart  of  man,  unworthy  heart,  heart  that 
hast  known  sorrows,  that  hast  been  crushed  by  sorrows,  why 
will  you  make  your  search  through  vain  and  frail  and  short- 
lived and  deceitful  goods?  Not  by  them  can  the  hunger,  not 
by  them  can  the  thirst  of  the  soul  be  allayed.  Love  your  true 
SCHADDAI.  He  alone  can  fill  every  corner  of  your  soul, 
He  alone  can  quench  your  thirst  with  a  rushing  stream,  yea, 
with  an  ocean  of  pleasures,  since  the  fount  of  Hfe  is  within  Him. 
To  the  mind  He  is  the  fulness  of  Hght,  to  the  will  a  manifold 
peace,  to  the  memory  a  continuation  of  eternity." 

St.  Augustine  tells  us:  "Thou  sufficest  for  God,  let  God  suf- 
fice for  thee." 

Line  22.  The  human  heart  is  indeed  a  "little  casement"; 
for,  though  it  opens  itself  widest,  it  can  never  satisfy  in  another 
himaan  heart  that  craving  which  God  alone  can  adequately 
allay. 

Line  23.  Approach. — ^Though  the  Pursuer  has  not  yet  come 
up,  His  very  drawing  near  sharply  closes  the  gates  of  the 
heart.  Not  indeed  that  the  human  heart,  in  whose  love  rest  is 
sought,  always  withdraws  its  love;  but  the  very  nearness  of 
God  brings  it  to  pass  that  the  craving  soul,  from  its  side,  finds 
no  comfort  in  such  proffered  or  even  given  love.  Yes,  even  in 
hearts  that  love  God  and  seek  Him  rightly,  the  increasing  near- 
ness of  God,  though  it  does  not  "clash  to"  the  opened  "Httle 
casements,"  does  cause  all  human  love  to  seem  a  poor,  frail 
thing  indeed,  and  not  worth  the  earning,  unless  it  be  from  a 
heart  that  is  quite  attuned  to  God. 

Gust — Clash. — ^The  words  convey  perfectly  the  idea  of 
great  speed  in  the  pursuit. 


38  NOTES 

Line  24.  All  the  peevish  ingenuity  of  the  soul,  afraid  to  give 
itself  to  God,  finds  itself  completely  checkmated  by  the  pur- 
suing love  of  God  for  it,  even  as  a  petulant  child,  who  would 
run  away  to  its  harm,  cannot  elude  the  watchful  eye  of  its 
mother.  With  the  "httle  casement"  clashed  to,  the  fugitive 
must  be  off  again  and  seek  new  harbor. 

Lines  25-51 

In  these  lines  the  soul  is  pictured  as  seeking  a  refuge  in  the 
broad  expanse  of  the  heavens.  It  goes  to  the  stars  and  the 
moon,  to  the  day  and  to  the  night,  to  all  the  winds,  only  to 
find  its  "own  betrayal  in  their  constancy."  The  conviction  of 
its  own  uneased  heart  is  voiced  by  the  Pursuer  in  line  50. 
''Naught  shelters  thee,  who  will  not  shelter  Me." 

Lines  25-26.  The  image  here  needs  clarifying.  Frustrated 
in  his  quest  for  love  from  men,  he  flees  across  the  margent  or 
margin  of  the  world,  i.  e.,  out  beyond  the  bounds  of  this  small 
earth  of  ours  and  comes  to  the  stars,  which  are  pictured  as 
having  gateways  of  gold.  At  the  bars  of  these  gates,  he  knocks 
sharply  and  impatiently  {smiting),  making  them  resound 
loudly  {clanged  bars,  by  prolepsis).  Then  he  hurries  across  to 
the  moon,  which  is  pictured  as  a  shadowy  castle  {pale  ports 
conveying  this  image),  at  whose  huge  silver  doors  he  beats  for 
entrance,  thus  making  them  ring  with  that  pleasing  discord 
pecuHar  to  silver. 

In  Hnes  16-23  the  picture  of  a  lowly  cottage  was  given,  as 
fit  symbol  of  the  human  heart.  Here,  in  keeping  with  out 
wonted  thoughts  of  the  skies,  a  firm-builded  castle  is  portrayed 
with  its  "gold  gateways,"  "clanged  bars,"  "pale  ports." 

Line  25.  Across  the  Margent  of  the  World. — If  the  soul 
sought  aright,  the  stars  and  the  heavens  would  bring  it  com- 
fort. A  Monica  and  an  Augustine,  as  they  sat  the  long  evenings 
out  on  the  balcony  at  Rome,  knew  how  to  find  in  the  stars  a 


NOTES  39 

pathway  unto  God.  Yes,  and  when  centuries  had  passed, 
Ignatius,  the  one-time  cavalier  of  Spain,  would  rise  from  like 
contemplation  of  the  heavens  with  his  wonted  cry:  "How  base 
do  earthly  things  become  to  me,  when  I  gaze  upon  the  heavens." 
Foolish  soul  that  has  forgotten  the  hymn  of  its  childhood  days: 

"Out  beyond  the  shining, 

Of  the  farthest  star, 
Thou  art  ever  stretching, 

Infinitely  far." 

Thus  its  hope  of  escape  is  fruitless.  See  Psalm  cxxxviii 
(quoted  in  Preface,  p:  vil). 

Line  '^.  Troubled. — Shows  fretful  anxiety  to  enter.  It 
moreover  hints  at  the  peace  and  gentle  quiet  of  the  heavens. 
Rebel  man  alone  brings  discord. 

Line  28.  Fretted. — Carries  on  the  idea  conveyed  by  "trou-" 
bled."  The  petulant  haste  of  the  outlaw  marring  the  quiet 
of  the  stars.  The  "dulcet  jars"  remind  one  of  "symphonia 
discors"  of  Horace. 

Line  30.  To  Dawn:  Be  Sudden. — ^The  coming  of  dawn 
always  seems  a  sudden  thing.  Indeed  we  speak  of  the  "day- 
break," just  as  centuries  ago  the  Hebrews  named  the  dawn, 
"bhoqer"  (from  the  root  bhaqar  to  "cleave,"  "open"),  the 
"cleaver"  of  the  darkness. 

Note  the  impatience  so  characteristic  of  the  sick,  above 
all  of  the  sick  of  mind.  When  man  is  trying  to  get  away  from 
the  voice  of  conscience  and  of  God,  the  worst  terror  is  to  lack 
constant  change  and  thus  be  thrown  back  on  self  and  self- 
introspection.  In  Deuteronomy  xxviii,  65-67,  God  pictures 
such  a  visitation  of  soul-agony  coming  upon  the  Jews,  if  they 
violate  His  law:  "Neither  shalt  thou  be  quiet,  even  in  those 
nations,  not  shall  there  be  any  rest  for  the  sole  of  thy  foot.  For 
the  Lord  will  give  thee  a  fearful  heart,  and  languishing  eyes, 
and  a  soul  consumed  with  pensiveness:  and  thy  life  shall  be  as 


40  NOTES 

it  were  hanging  before  thee.  Thou  shalt  fear  night  and  day, 
neither  shalt  thou  trust  thy  hfe.  In  the  morning  thou  shalt 
say:  Who  will  grant  me  evening?  and  at  evening:  Who  will 
grant  me  morning?  for  the  fearfulness  of  thy  heart,  wherewith 
thou  shall  be  terrified,  and  for  those  things  which  thou  shalt 
see  with  thy  eyes." 

Thompson  must  often  have  felt  thus  during  his  days  of 
penury  in  London.  The  following  lines  speak  eloquently 
(Sister  Songs,  Part  ist): 

"Forlorn,  and  faint,  and  stark, 
I  had  endured  through  watches  of  the  dark 

The  abashless  inquisition  of  each  star. 
Yea,  was  the  outcast  mark 

Of  all  those  heavenly  passers'  scrutiny; 

Stood  bound  and  helplessly 
For  Time  to  shoot  his  barbed  minutes  at  me; 
Suffered  the  trampling  hoof  of  every  hour 

In  night's  slow- wheeled  car; 
Until  the  tardy  dawn  dragged  me  at  length 
From  under  those  dread  wheels;  and,  bled  of  strength, 

I  waited  the  inevitable  last." 

Lme  ji.  If  the  soul,  yet  in  this  vale  of  tears,  wherein  God's 
"mercy  most  delights  to  spare,"  would  only  realize  that  God's 
pursuit  is  not  one  of  vengeful  wrath  but  a  pursuit  to  rescue  it 
from  its  own  folly,  then  this  desire  to  be  hid  from  God  would 
never  find  expression.  Only  when  Hfe  is  over  and  the  con- 
demnatory judgment  is  come,  is  there  place  and  real  reason  for 
what  we  read  so  strongly  put  by  St.  John:  "And  the  kings  of 
the  earth  and  the  princes  and  the  tribunes,  and  the  rich  and 
the  strong  and  every  bondman,  and  every  freeman  hid  them- 
selves in  the  dens  and  in  the  rocks  of  mountains:  and  they  shall 
say  to  the  mountains  and  the  rocks:  Fall  upon  us  and  hide  us 
from  the  face  of  Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  from  the 


NOTES  41 

wrath  of  the  Lamb"  (Apocalypse  vi,  15,  16).  Sin  alone  can 
make  us  want  to  be  away  and  hide  from  God.  It  was  sin  that 
staged  the  memorable  scene  in  Paradise:  "And  when  they 
heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  walking  in  paradise  at  the 
afternoon  air,  Adam  and  his  wife  hid  themselves  from  the 
face  of  the  Lord  God,  amidst  the  trees  of  paradise"  (Gene- 
sis iii,  8). 

Thompson's  varied  imagery  of  the  sky  is  astounding.  Com- 
pare lines  40-44,  68,  69,  77-79,  85,  86,  92,  95,  loi.  Compare 
Evangeline: 

"Silently  one  by  one,  in  the  infinite  meadows  of  heaven. 
Blossomed  the  lovely  stars,  the  forget-me-nots  of  the  Angels." 

Tremendous  Lover. — God  is  a  tremendous  Lover:  (i)  for 
His  love  is  eternal — "Yea,  I  have  loved  thee  with  an  everlasting 
love.  Therefore  I  have  drawn  thee  taking  pity  on  thee" 
(Jeremias  xxxi,  3);  (2)  for  His  love  is  unsurpassed.  "Can  a 
woman  forget  her  infant,  so  as  not  to  have  pity  on  the  son  of 
her  womb?  And  if  she  should  forget,  yet  will  I  not  forget 
thee"  (Isaias  xlix,  15);  (3)  for  His  love  is  insistent — for  when 
God  wills  to  win  the  full  love  of  the  human  heart,  there  is  no 
silencing  His  grace's  knocking.  "Behold  I  stand  at  the  gate 
and  knock"  (Apocalypse  iii,  20);  (4)  for  His  love  is  munificent — 
giving  us  gifts  of  inward  grace  in  this  life  and  a  reward  sur- 
passing thought  in  the  next.  "Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  what 
things  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love /Jim"  (i  Co- 
rinthians ii,  9);  (5)  for  His  love  is  overwhelming — of  other  saints 
than  St.  Francis  Xavier  has  the  following  been  told:  "Francis 
was  often  overheard  crying  out  during  prayer,  with  his  hands 
on  his  heart  and  eyes  raised  to  heaven:  "Basta  ya,  Serior, ♦v'^^^\, 
basta!"  (Enough,  Lord,  enough).  He  was  also  known  to 
open  his  soutane  and  pour  water  upon  his  chest,  so  ardent  was 
the  fire  of  divine  love  that  inflamed  his  heart"  (The  Life  of 


42  NOTES 

St.  Francis  Xavier— M.  T.  Kelly,  Ch.  v);  (6)  for  His  love  is 
changeless — "Jesus  Christ  yesterday,  and  to-day  and  the  same 
forever"  (Hebrews  xiii,  8);  (7)  lastly  (bringing  "tremendous" 
back  to  its  root  sense  of  "making  to  fear")  because  His  love  is 
so  great  and  so  overwhelming  and  so  exclusive  that  it  does  make 
the  poor  unschooled  human  soul  fear  the  isolating  greatness  of 
this  same  love.    Compare  lines  19-21  and  note. 

Line  33.  Vague  Veil. — The  veil  of  night  is  vague  in  itself  and 
makes  all  objects  vague.  Thus  would  it  be  harder  to  be  found 
by  the  Lover.    Compare  Dante  (Inferno,  Canto  III) : 

"Various  tongues 


Made  up  a  tumult  that  forever  whirls 

Round  through  the  air  with  solid  darkness  stained, 

Like  to  the  sand  that  in  the  whirlwind  flies." 

Lines  34-37.  Inanimate  nature  is  in  its  every  component 
part  a  mirror  of  some  excellence  in  God:  the  storm,  of  His 
power;  the  cataract,  of  His  grandeur;  the  flower,  of  His  beauty. 
Though  we  may  misuse  them,  we  can  never  change  their  nature; 
and  thus  they  ever  faithfully  portray  their  Creator  and  remain 
loyal  to  Him.  St.  Ignatius  in  the  meditation  on  "Personal 
Sin,"  after  making  us  parade  our  sins  before  us  and  "weigh" 
them,  and  after  making  us  pit  our  poor  selves  against  God 
whom  we  have  offended  by  thus  misusing  the  wills  He  bestowed 
on  us  and  the  creatures  He  gave  to  us,  suggests  that  there  will 
come  forth  from  our  soul,  "a  cry  of  wonder  with  a  flood  of 
emotion,  ranging  in  thought  through  all  creatures, — how  they 
have  suffered  me  to  live  and  have  preserved  me  in  Hfe, — how 
the  angels,  being  the  sword  of  divine  justice,  have  borne  with 
me  and  guarded  and  prayed  for  me, — ^how  the  Saints  have 
been  interceding  and  praying  for  me, — and  the  heavens,  sun, 
moon,  stars  and  elements,  fruits,  birds,  fishes  and  animals, — 
and  the  earth,  how  it  has  not  opened  to  swallow  me  up,  creating 


NOTES  43 

new  hells  for  my  eternal  torment  therein"  (Spiritual  Exercises 
of  St.  Ignatius,  translated  by  Rickaby,  S.  J.). 

For  the  antithetical  verbal  structure  of  these  lines  we  have 
many  an  example  in  the  writings  of  St.  Augustine.  The  follow- 
ing from  Fr.  A.  J.  Ryan's  Nocturne  sounds  a  like,  though  lesser, 
note: 

"To  be  faithless  oft  means  to  be  faithful, 
To  be  false  often  means  to  be  true; 

The  vale  that  loves  clouds  that  are  golden 
Forgets  them  for  skies  that  are  blue. 

To  forget  often  means  to  remember 

What  we  had  forgotten  too  long; 
The  fragrance  is  not  the  bright  flower, 

The  echo  is  not  the  sweet  song." 

Tennyson  (Lancelot  and  Elaine)  sings: 

" but   now 

The  shackles  of  an  old  love  straightened  him, 

His  honor  rooted  in  dishonor  stood, 

And  faith  unfaithful  kept  him  falsely  true." 

Line  38.  Note  the  alliteration  and  the  onomatopoctic  effect 
in  these  lines.  "  To  "  with  the  verb  "  sue  "  is  unusual.  However 
compare  "make  suit  to." 

Compare  a  similar  thought  in  Isaias  xxx,  15,  16:  "For  thus 
saith  the  Lord  God  the  Holy  One  of  Israel :  If  you  return  and  be 
quiet,  you  shall  be  saved:  in  silence  and  in  hope  shall  your 
strength  be.  And  you  would  not:  but  have  said:  No,  but  we 
will  flee  to  horses:  therefore  shall  you  flee.  And  we  will  mount 
upon  swift  ones:  therefore  shall  they  be  swifter  that  shall  pursue 
after  you." 

Line  jp.  Mane. — In  this  one  word  the  whole  metaphor  of 
the  cloud-horses  is  foreshadowed. 


44  NOTES 

Line  40.  Smoothly  Fleet. — Swift  but  not  boisterous. 

Lines  41-42.  Diff^iiig  interpretations  have  been  made  of 
these  lines,  i.  "^S=mk  is  intransitive  and  "long  savannahs  of 
the  blue"  is  in  apposition  to  "  they."  Thus  the  thought  would 
be,  that  the  breath  of  a  quiet  breeze  on  a  clear  blue  day,  makes 
us  think  that  it  has  come  from  afar,  and  that  it  is  very  long  like 
a  "savannah."  Compare  "Wind  of  the  Moor,"  by  C.  ScoUard, 
especially  the  opening  line:  "Wind  of  the  Moor,  breath  of  the 
vast  free  reaches." 

ii.  "Swept"  is  transitive,  governing  "long  savannahs." 
"  The  long  savannahs  of  the  blue"  are  then  the  blue  dome  of 
heaven  itself. 

Line  42.  Compare  Psalm  ciii,  1-4: — 

"Bless,  the  Lord,  O  my  soul. 
O  Lord  my  God,  Thou  art  exceeding  great: 

With  splendor  and  glory  art  Thou  clad, 

Thou  coverest  Thyself  with  light  as  with  a  garment ; 
Spreadest  out  the  heavens  like  a  tent-cloth. 

Who  lays  the  beams  of  His  upper-chambers  in  the  waters; 
Who  makes  the  clouds  His  chariot: 

Who  makes  His  way  on  the  wings  of  the  wind; 
Who  makes  his  messengers  winds: 

His  ministers  a  flaming  fire." 

"In  these  verses  God  is  figured  as  an  earthly  potentate,  clad 
in  splendor,  enthroned  under  a  lofty  canopy  (  =  "tent-cloth"), 
possessing  towering  palaces,  swift  chariots,  and  a  countless 
retinue"  (M'Swiney,  S.  J.,  Translation  of  the  Psalms  and 
Canticles) . 

Again  we  read  in  Habacuc  (iii,  8,  11):  "Wast  Thou  angry,  O 
Lord,  with  the  rivers?  Or  was  Thy  wrath  upon  the  rivers? 
Or  Thy  indignation  in  the  sea?  Who  will  ride  upon  Thy  horses: 
and  Thy  chariots  are  salvation.  .  .  .  The  sun  and  the  moon 


NOTES  45 

stood  still  in  their  habitation,  in  the  light  of  Thy  arrows,  they 
shall  go  in  the  brightness  of  Thy  glittering  spear." 

Line  44/J\ist  as  wildly  charging  horses  strike  fire  from  be- 
neath their  feet,  so  these  heavenly  steeds,  the  winds,  awaken 
the  lightnings  as  their  feet  "spiini^'  the  ground,  i.  e.,  thrust  the 
floor  of  heaven  hurriedly  away  from  them/'  We  read  in  Thomp- 
son's Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun: — 

"wide  o'er  rout-trampled  night 
Flew  spurned  the  pebbled  stars." 

Line  45.  Fear  Wist  Not. — Fear  could  suggest  no  avenue, 
down  which  to  flee,  that  Love  could  not  and  did  not  discover. 

Fear. — It  was  indeed  a  purblind  dread  of  this  tremendous 
Lover  that  caused  the  flight. 

Line  4Q.  Note  the  strong,  active  sense  of  "following,"  a 
proper,  but  contrary  to  normal,  usage,  which  offers  the  word 
in  an  inactive  sense  only,  'V.  g.,  "the  following  paragraph." 
Compare  note  on  line  14. 

Line  51.  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  garden  after  their  betrayal  of 
God's  trust,  to  keep  their  souls  untarnished,  found  no  place  to 
shelter  them  "when  they  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God 
walking  in  paradise  at  the  afternoon  air"  (Genesis  iii,  8). 

Lines  52-60 

Foiled  of  his  purpose  among  the  stars,  he  drops  back  to  earth; 
but  remembering  his  cheated  dreams  of  winning  satisfying  love 
from  older  folk,  he  seeks  in  the  love  of  children  surcease  of  his 
pain. 

Line  52.  That  After  Which  I  Strayed. — The  human  heart  is 
always  consciously  or  unconsciously  seeking  the  "perfect  good," 
the  possession  of  which  will  bring  it  perfect  well-being  and 
adequate  happiness. 

Line  53.  Thompson's  love  of  children  was  remarkable. 
Compare  especially  the  ending  of  his  poem  "To  my  Godchild": 


46  NOTES 

"  For  if  in  Eden  as  on  earth  are  we, 
I  sure  shall  keep  a  younger  company: 

Look  for  me  in  the  nurseries  of  Heaven." 
Again,  from  Sister  Songs  (Part  First) : 

"Then  there  came  past 
A  Child;  like  thee,  a  spring  flower;  but  a  flower 
Fallen  from  the  budded  coronal  of  Spring, 
And  through  the  city-streets  blown  withering. 
She  passed — 0  brave,  sad,  lovingest,  tender  thing! 
And  of  her  own  scant  pittance  did  she  give, 

That  I  might  eat  and  live: 
Then  fled,  a  swift  and  trackless  fugitive. 

Therefore  I  kissed  in  thee 
The  heart  of  Childhood,  so  di\'ine  for  me." 

Amongst  the  most  remarkable  of  his  children's  poems  are 
"Daisy,"  "The  Poppy,"  "The  Making  of  Viola,"  "Ex  Ore 
Infantium,"  the  last  of  which  should  be  known  to  every 
child.  /^^ 

Line  §4.  Still. — Though  adult  human  kind  has  failed  to  stay 
his  quest,  there  does  seem  to  remain  hope  of  human  love  from 
children. 

Line  55.  Notice  the  indefinite  "something"  and  the  repeti- 
tion of  the  same.  What  it  was,  the  poet  seemed  not  to  know; 
and  "just  as  their  young  eyes  grew  sudden  fair,  with  dawning 
answers  there,"  just  as  that  intangible  "something"  seemed  to 
be  about  to  be  rendered  intelligible  to  him,  the  little  children 
were  snatched  away — and  his  quest  was  on  him  again. 

Line  56.  They  at  Least. — There  is  a  poignancy  in  these 
words  that  bespeak  the  soul's  realization  that  it  is  playing  a 
losing  game  that  costs  it  much. 


NOTES  47 

Line  57.  The  pathos  of  this  line  is  splendid,  its  slow  move- 
ment fitting  in  harmoniously  with  the  thought.  His  soul- 
hunger  is  strong,  very  strong. 

Line  §8.  A  child's  eyes  "light  up"  when  it  has  something 
good  and  pleasing  to  tell  its  comrades  or  its  elders,  for  the  eyes 
are  the  windows  of  the  soul  and  the  light  of  its  joys  and  the 
shadows  of  its  sorrows  stream  through  those  same  windows. 
Compare  the  delicate  poem  of  CastelH,  "Vom  Auge,"  two 
stanzas  of  which  run  thus: 

"Es  sind  zwei  kleine  Fensterlein 
In  einem  grossen  Haus, 
Da  schaut  die  ganze  Welt  hinein 
Die  ganze  Welt  heraus. 


Auch  was  der  Hausherr  denkt  und  fleht 
Malt  er  ans  Fenster  an, 
Dass  jeder,  der  vorueber  geht, 
Es  deuthch  sehen  kann." 

Line  60.  Their  Angel  Plucked  Them. — To  save  them  from 
being  means,  albeit  unwittingly,  of  aid  to  the  soul's  thievery  of 
itself  from  God,  since  innocence  must  have  no  part  in  such 
sacrilege.  A  kind  cruelty  both  to  the  soul  and  to  the  children. 
Probably  Thompson  wishes,  too,  to  stress  his  own  deeply-felt 
unworthiness  and  taintedness,  as  a  reason  for  this  sudden  with- 
drawal of  the  innocents. 

Plucked  Them. — Suddenly  and  swiftly. 

Did  Thompson  have  in  mind  here  the  story  of  Ganymede  of 
pagan  mythology,  and  of  Habacuc  (Daniel  xiv,  32-38)?  He 
certainly  had  in  mind  the  Catholic  belief  in  Guardian  Angels. 
It  is  indeed  a  commonplace  of  Catholic  teaching  that  each  one 
of  us  has  an  Angel  to  guard  and  protect  us,  above  all  in  matters 
touching  the  soul.    "  See  that  you  despise  not  one  of  these  little 


48  NOTES 

ones:  for  I  say  to  you  that  their  Angels  in  heaven  always  see 
the  face  of  My  Father,  who  is  in  heaven"  (St.  Matthew  xviii, 
lo).  What  courage  and  confidence  such  a  doctrine  gives  us,  as 
from  our  earliest  days  we  are  schooled  to  kneel  and  pray: 

"Angel  of  God,  my  guardian  dear, 
To  whom  His  love  commits  me  here, 
Ever  this  day  be  at  my  side, 
To  light,  to  guard,  to  rule  and  guide." 

We  may  compare  the  thought  expressed  by  Tennyson 
(Lancelot  and  Elaine)  as  Lancelot  thinks  upon  his  guilty 
past: 

" .     .     .     But  if  I  would  not,  then  may  God, 
I  pray  him,  send  a  sudden  Angel  down 
To  seize  me  by  the  hair  and  bear  me  far 
And  fling  me  deep  in  that  forgotten  mere, 
Among  the  tumbled  fragments  of  the  hills." 

Lines  61-110 

The  soul  turns  to  Nature's  children  and  tries  to  frame  all  its 
moods  on  theirs,  hoping  to  be  one  with  them  in  their  "delicate 
fellowship,"  only  to  find  that  the  human  heart  can  secure  no 
real  sympathy  from  creatures  that  know  not  suffering.  Indeed 
sympathy  (from  the  Greek  o-vfi7rcia')^6Lv — to  suffer  along  with) 
presupposes  at  least  the  capacity  of  suffering  like  pain. 

Lines  61-62.  This  whole  passage  is  a  poetic  flight  full  of 
vast  imagery,  and  one  does  wrong  to  strain  out  laboriously  a 
separate  reason  for  every  word.  The  main  idea  is  clear.  Na- 
ture is  here  pictured  as  a  queen  and  mother,  with  the  earth  as 
her  palace,  which  is  walled  round  with  winds.  She  is  seated 
upon  a  throne  or  dais,  that  is  canopied  over  by  the  azure  dome 
of  Heaven.  Within  the  palace,  i.e.,  upon  the  earth,  are  Nature's 
children,  the  winds  and  the  rain  and  the  clouds,  the  trees  and 


NOTES  49 

plants  and  flowers,  banqueting  and  drinking  from  chalices, 
which  are  filled  with  the  pure  light  that  is  spilled  abroad  by  the 
sun  at  day-break  (^' hicent-weeping  out  of  the  day  spring^'). 

Come  Then. — The  petulancy  and  growing  irritation  of  the 
thwarted  soul  is  shown  in  the  abrupt  transition  and  appeal. 
Of  all  the  attempts  made  by  the  soul  to  find  relief  outside  of 
God,  this  is  the  most  pitiable.    (Compare  note  on  fine  93.) 

Nature's. — As  many  a  man  before  and  after  him,  Thompson 
tried  to  find  a  fulness  of  rest  and  repose  in  nature.  "Few  seem 
to  realize  that  she  is  alive,  has  almost  as  many  ways  as  a 
woman,  and  is  to  be  lived  with,  not  merely  looked  at."  Thus 
he  writes  to  Mrs,  Meynell  (Life,  p.  131).  But  he  himself  found 
that  it  was  quite  impossible  that  the  void  of  the  human  heart 
should  be  filled  by  dumb  nature.  He  will  tell  us  this  in  lines  90- 
104,  and  speaks  of  it  in  "A  Renegade  Poet  and  Other  Essays" 
(Boston,  1910,  pp.  95-96):  "You  speak,  and  you  think  she 
answers  you.  It  is  the  echo  of  your  own  voice.  You  think  you 
hear  the  throbbing  of  her  heart,  and  it  is  the  throbbing  of  your 
own.  I  do  not  believe  that  Nature  has  a  heart;  and  I  suspect 
that  like  many  another  beauty,  she  has  been  credited  with  a 
heart  because  of  her  face."  A  companionship  can  be  found  in 
nature,  if  it  be  sought  aright  and  restrainedly.  So  did  St. 
Francis  of  Assissi  find  joy  in  Nature  and  Nature's  children, 
because  they  and  he  were  children  of  the  same  Father.  So 
do  not  the  Pantheists  and  atheistic  nature-lovers. 

Line  62.  Delicate. — Notice  the  word  which  is  repeated  in 
line  74.  The  soul  has  lost  faith  in  its  fellows,  and  unaggressive 
nature  with  its  verdant  meadows,  soft  turf  and  gentle  breezes 
seemed  to  hold  the  balm  of  Galaad  that  would  heal  its  smarts 
nor  would  it  ever  bruise  his  soul.  There  seems  interwoven  with 
these  lines  the  confession  that  Thompson  found  the  fellowship  of 
men  a  rasp  to  his  seijtive,  high-strung  soul — men  who  called 
him  "The  dreamer,"  who  said  that  he  "hung  his  needless 
head"  among  them.    Compare  note  on  line  123. 


50  NOTES 

Line  66.  Vagrant. — Here  used  in  its  radical,  active  sense  of 
"wandering,"  "straying."    Compare  line  14  and  note. 

Compare  the  passage  from  Sister  Poems  (Part  2nd,  lines  34, 
35,  Burns  and  Oates  Edition,  1908): 

"Sees  the  palm  and  tamarind 
Tangle  the  tresses  of  a  phantom  wind." 

Lines  68-6g.  Wind- Walled  Palace. — The  winds  are  pictured 
as  the  walls  of  the  palace,  the  earth  being  the  floor. 

Lines  yo-72.  The  meaning  seems  to  be,  that  in  the  early- 
hours,  before  the  turmoil  of  Hfe  taints  the  earth,  Nature's 
children  drink  of  the  dews  which  come  pure  and  clean  and 
sparkling  {" lucent-weeping^'  =  pouring  forth  light)  out  of  the 
morning's  chahce. 

Corot,  the  famous  French  painter,  used  to  fold  up  his  kit  at 
sunrise  and  go  into  the  house,  saying  that  beauty  vanished  with 
the  broad  daylight. 

Line  75.  Though  Nature  is  an  open  book,  which  God  spreads 
before  us  all,  still  there  are  secrets  that  one  can  find  out  only  by 
diligent  search.  As  in  any  other  book,  it  requires  time  and 
thought  to  "read  between  the  lines." 

Line  76.  Compare  Wordsworth's  "Michael": 

"Hence  he  had  learned  the  meaning  of  all  winds, 
Of  blasts  of  every  tone;  and  oftentimes. 
When  others  heeded  not,  he  heard  the  south 
Make  subterraneous  music,  like  the  noise 
Of  bagpipers  on  distant  Highland  hills." 

Lines  78-yg.  Compare  Tennyson  (Ancient  Sage) : 

"This  wealth  of  waters  might  but  seem  to  draw 
From  yon  dark  cave,  but  son,  the  source  is  higher, 
Yon  summit  half  a  league  in  air — and  higher. 


NOTES  51 

The  cloud  that  hides  it — higher  still,  the  heavens 
Whereby  the  clouds  are  moulded,  and  whereout 
The  cloud  descended.    Force  is  from  the  heights." 

Note  well  that  both  Tennyson  and  Thompson  are  admirably 
accurate  on  matters  scientific,  even  those  technically  so.  These 
present  lines  express,  as  only  a  poet  could,  the  bald  fact  that 
the  water  is  drawn  up  from  the  ocean  by  the  heat  of  the  sun 
and  forms  clouds.  Tennyson  frames  this  briefly:  "The  clouds 
themselves  are  children  of  the  sun."  Besides  comparing 
SheUy's  "Cloud,"  notice  "Clouds"  by  J.  B.  Tabb: 

"Born  of  the  waters  are  we, 

Clean  of  original  stain; 
Fresh  from  the  salt  of  the  sea, 

Pure  from  the  marsh  and  the  plain.  . 

Born  of  the  breezes  above, 

Whithersoever  they  go. 
Made  in  a  mystical  love, 

Mothers  of  Rain  and  of  Snow." 

V  Line  yg.  Spumed  of  the  Wild  Sea-Snortings. — As  though 
the  white  clouds  were  foam  thrown  off  by  great  sea-horses 
in  their  wild  racing. 

Line  82.  Wailful  or  Divine. — The  outcome  of  every  spiritual 
movement  sent  by  God,  is  joy  and  peace;  and  even  though  in 
the  beginning  there  be  darkness,  this  is  only  the  "shade  of  His 
hand  outstretched  caressingly." 

Darkness  there  may  be  for  the  soul,  even  as  night  falls  on 
the  body,  but  both  darknesses  are  meant  for  respite,  not  for 
irritation.  Gloom  from  God  is  always  the  forerunner  of  dawn; 
it  is  the  noon  of  night  that  will  yield  to  the  cheering  twilight  in 
which  holy  souls  in  this  vale  of  tears  abide  until  they  stand  in 
the  full  light  of  Heaven.    Be  the  darkness  what  it  may,  unless 


52  NOTES 

we  misread  its  sending,  there  is  nothing  wailful  about  it,  save 
for  heroic  souls  who  make  love's  complaint:  "Yet  more,  O 
Lord,  yet  more."  Where  God  is,  there  are  no  tears;  or,  if 
there  be,  they  touch  but  the  surface,  as  the  rainfall  and  the 
storm  ruffle  the  ocean's  breast,  while  the  depths  of  the  soul  are 
at  peace  with  God.  To  every  soul-cloud  sent  by  God,  there  is  a 
silver  lining  seen  and  felt.  Darkness  that  brings  lasting  de- 
pression is  not  of  God. 

Notice  the  chiastic  construction: 

Wailful  ~"-~-^^^^-^-^divine 
joyed.^-'"^  ^"~^^-^bereaven. 

To  Thompson,  as  we  know  from  his  life,  there  seemed  a  very 
evident  parallel  between  the  seasons  of  the  soul  and  the  Church's 
liturgical  seasons. 

Line  84.  All  too  well  is  it  known  that  with  those  in  grief  and 
anxiety  the  lengthening  shadows  of  eventide  are  wont  to  bring 
on  depression  and  anxiety;  then,  when  the  morning  comes,  they 
*' laugh  in  the  morning's  eyes,"  for  the  material  light,  breaking 
in  on  the  darkness,  all  unconsciously  causes  light  and  joy  to  be 
re-lit  in  their  hearts  and  drives  back  all  shadows  therefrom. 

Lines  8j-86.  This  is  a  beautiful  image  of  the  stars  as  glim- 
mering tapers  placed  round  the  day  that  is  dead  and  which  by 
its  brightness  and  glory  was  like  to  the  holiness  of  grace.  Com- 
pare Macbeth,  Act.  II,  Scene  i : 

"There's  husbandry  in  heaven; 
Their  candles  are  all  out." 

Line  86.  Dead  Sanctities. — To  Thompson,  even  as  to  every 
true  lover  of  God,  everything  in  nature  was  "sacramental,"  that 
is,  a  sensible  sign  of  some  hidden,  mysterious  power  behind. 
Compare  Romans  i,  20:  "For  the  invisible  things  of  Him,  from 
the  creation  of  the  world,  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood 
by  the  things  that  are  made."    This  too  was  the  way  of  the 


NOTES  53 

Saints,  away  and  beyond  all  other  men.  To  them,  it  was 
frankly  true,  "Turn  but  a  stone  and  start  an  Angel's  wing." 
The  root  difficulty  in  these  modern  days  is  that  "Heaven  is  not 
as  neighbourly  with  us  as  with  men  of  old." 

Compare  the  opening  verses  of  "Orient  Ode,"  wherein 
Thompson  bases  his  imagery  on  the  Catholic  ritual  of  Bendic- 
tion. 

Line  go.  In  the  revealed  story  of  the  creative  days,  we  read 
after  each  day  that  preceded  man's  own  coming:  "And  God 
saw  that  it  was  good."  Philosophy,  too,  unless  it  be  quite 
sapped  of  its  truth  by  ancient  or  modern  Manichaeism,  which 
would  hold  to  a  double  principle  of  good  and  evil,  teaches  us 
that  all  things  are  good.  So  the  rain  is  good,  and  it  is  sweet 
too — sweet  to  the  lips  of  the  parched  earth,  the  long  dusty  road, 
the  thirsting  flowers,  the  cricket  with  its  drought-born  cry. 
Only  in  the  tears  of  man  is  there  bitterness,  brought  there  by 
his  own  sad  misconstruing  of  life  and  life's  problem.  God,  by 
the  gifts  He  had  given  to  our  first  parents,  dried  our  tears 
before  they  ever  fell.  Adam's  sin  unloosed  the  fountain  of 
tears  and  swift  and  destructive  has  been  the  flowing  since  then, 
from  the  first  cry  of  the  new-born  babe  to  the  tears  that  wet 
age's  cheeks,  as  it  bends  over  its  own  grave.  "Never  morning 
wore  to  evening,  but  some  heart  did  break"  (In  Memoriam, 
Canto  vi).     Compare  A.  O'Shaugnessy's  Fountain  of  Tears. 

We  read  the  following  in  the  "Autobiography  of  the  Little 
Flower"  (p.  loo):  "On  that  day,  too,  the  sun  dared  not  shine, 
and  the  beautiful  blue  sky  of  Italy,  hidden  by  dark  clouds, 
mingled  its  tears  with  mine." 

Line  gi.  Sunset  Heart. — All  through  this  passage  Nature  is 
personified;  and  quite  naturally  the  metaphor  of  heart  is  here 
introduced.    Compare  Thompson's  "  A  Corymbus  for  Autumn  " : 

"Day's  dying  dragon  lies  drooping  his  crest, 
Panting  red  pants  into  the  West." 


54  NOTES 

Again,  the  "Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun"  may  be  read  for  much 
similar  imagery. 

Though  dissimilar,  the  following  from  Sidney  Lanier's  "Even- 
ing Song"  is  worthy  of  note: 

"Now  in  the  sea's  red  vintage  melts  the  sun, 

As  Egypt's  pearl  dissolved  in  rosy  wine, 
And  Cleopatra  night  drinks  all." 

Line  gj.  How  many  gropers  after  God  have  tried  to  win 
warmth  for  their  heart  from  nature  and  nature-study — futilely! 
The  cult  of  nature  in  lieu  of  religion  has  been  prominent  of 
late,  because  in  most  religions  there  has  been  an  adequate 
destruction  of  all  true  notions  of  the  supernatural.  Emotional- 
ism is  taken  for  religion;  and  we  all  know,  that  while  nature's 
beauties  can  awaken  powerful  emotions  in  any  soul  that  is  not 
utterly  crass,  such  fleeting  phases  of  feeling  are  not  satisfying 
food  for  an  immortal  soul.  Naturism  is  a  poor  substitute. 
No,  not  by  that,  by  that  is  eased  our  human  smart! 

Line  94.  Even  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  where  there  could  be 
no  "human  smart,"  God  saw  that  it  was  not  good  for  man  to 
be  alone;  and  so  made  for  him  a  helpmate  like  unto  himself 
(Genesis  ii,  18).  But  once  the  human  heart  knew  pain  and 
sorrow,  this  need  of  intelligent,  actively  sympathetic  and, 
above  all,  competent  comradeship  became  intensified.  The 
Incarnation  is  the  answer  to  that  need.  "And  the  Word  was 
made  flesh  and  dwelt  amongst  us"  (St.  John  i,  14).  Thus  we 
have  to  keep  us  company,  "the  man,  Christ  Jesus"  (i  Timothy 
ii,  5);  as  man,  keenly  and  experimentally  conscious  of  our 
weakness;  as  God,  strong  to  ease  our  "human  smarts."  Read 
the  striking  passage  in  Hebrews  ii,  9-1 S. 

By  That,  By  That. — There  is  deep  pathos  in  this  repetition. 
He  had  taken  himself  right  gladly  and  most  hopefully  to  these 
children  of  a  mother  whom  he  thought  to  own  in  common  with 
them,  and  now  the  increased   "human  smart"  assures  him 


NOTES  S5 

that  his  kinship  was  mistaken;  nay  more,  these  children  and 
he  are  alien  and  do  not  speak  the  same  language.  Their  "deli- 
cate fellowship "  was,  after  all,  a  deceptive  thing. 

So  deep-seated  is  this  need  of  human  companionship  in  our 
nature,  that  Aristotle  tells  us  in  the  Politics  (Bk.  I,  ch.  2): 
"But  he  who  is  unable  to  live  in  society,  or  who  has  no  need 
because  he  is  suflEicient  in  himself,  must  be  either  a  beast  or  a 
god:  he  is  no  part  of  a  state"  (Jowett's  Translation).  The 
soul  here  is  neither  a  beast,  for  the  objects  of  its  misdirected 
love  are  not  sinful;  nor  is  it  a  god,  as  its  incessant  craving  for 
created  love  proves. 

This  part  of  the  poem  ought  to  be  compared  with  these 
powerful  passages  in  Holy  Scripture  in  which  the  absurdity  of 
idolatry  is  shown:  Wisdom  xii,  10-19,  Isaias  xliv,  9-20,  Jeremias 

X,  3-5. 

Line  qj.  Even  when  on  cloudy,  damp  days  nature  seemed 
best  attuned  to  his  sorrow,  it  gave  him  no  solace. 

Line  g8.  Their  Sound  is  But  Their  Stir.— The  trees,  the 
flowers,  the  grass,  the  water,  etc.,  "speak"  to  us  of  God,  not  by 
the  sound  they  make  as  they  are  swayed  by  the  winds  or  tumble 
over  the  rocks,  but  by  silently  showing  forth,  as  imitations  and 
adumbrations.  His  limitless  perfections.  This  "witnessing"  is 
beautifully  described  by  the  Psalmist  (Psalm  xviii,  2-5) : 

"The  heavens  show  forth  the  glory  of  God, 

And  the  firmament  declareth  the  work  of  His  hands. 
Day  to  day  uttereth  speech. 

And  night  to  night  showeth  knowledge. 
There  are  no  speeches  or  languages 

Where  their  voices  are  not  heard. 
Their  sound  hath  gone  forth  into  all  the  earth. 

And  their  words  unto  the  ends  of  the  world." 

It  is  of  this  eloquence  of  nature  that  the  Book  of  Wisdom 
speaks  (xiii,  1-9): 


S6  NOTES 

"But  all  men  are  vain,  in  whom  there  is  not  the  knowl- 
edge of  God:  and  who  by  these  good  things  that  are  seen, 
could  not  understand  Him  that  is,  neither  by  attending  to 
the  works  have  acknowledged  who  was  the  workman:  but 
have  imagined  either  the  fire,  or  the  wind,  or  the  swift  air,  or 
the  circle  of  the  stars,  or  the  great  water,  or  the  sun  and  moon, 
to  be  the  gods  that  rule  the  world.  With  whose  beauty,  if 
they,  being  delighted,  took  them  to  be  gods,  let  them  know 
how  much  the  Lord  of  them  is  more  beautiful  than  they:  for 
the  first  author  of  beauty  made  all  those  things.  Or  if  they 
admired  their  power  and  their  effects,  let  them  understand  by 
them,  that  He  that  made  them,  is  mightier  than  they:  for  by 
the  greatness  of  the  beauty  and  of  the  creature,  the  Creator  of 
them  may  be  seen,  so  as  to  be  known  thereby.  But  yet  as  to 
these  they  are  less  to  be  blamed.  For  they  perhaps  err,  seeking 
God  and  desirous  to  find  Him.  For  being  conversant  among  His 
works,  they  search,  and  they  are  persuaded  that  the  things  are 
good  which  are  seen.  But  then  again  they  are  not  to  be  par- 
doned. For  if  they  were  able  to  know  so  much  as  to  make  a 
judgment  of  the  world,  how  did  they  not  more  easily  find  out 
the  Lord  thereof?" 

Silences. — ^These  silences  could  never  ease  the  troubled 
heart.  There  is  only  one  silence  that  can  heal  every  human 
smart;  and  that  is  the  "silence  of  Death,"  that  ushers  us 
into  eternity,  wherein  reverberate  unceasingly  "the  sound- 
less thunders  of  eternal:  bliss,  breaking  on  an  immaterial 
shore. " 

Line  gg.  Nature  was  not  at  fault.  If  she  failed,  it  was  be- 
cause she  was  asked  to  nurture  a  child  that  was  not  of  her 
kind  nor  of  her  own  choosing. 

Line  loo.  Owe. — Here  in  the  sense  of  "own,"  "claim  me  as 
her  own." 

Despite  the  fact  that  he  realizes  she  is  not  his  mother,  he 
makes  one  last  despairing  appeal. 


NOTES  57 

Line  loi.  Nature  does  drop  the  blue  bosom-veil  of  sky  and, 
from  the  breasts  of  her  tenderness,  pour  down  upon  her  true 
but  irrational  children,  the  enlivening  rain  that  furthers  their 
growth. 

Line  103.  Never  .  .  .  Once. — This  search  has  been  utterly- 
futile.  At  least  man  and  maid  and  child  began  to  return  his 
love,  until  God,  with  cruel  kindness,  offset  it. 

Line  105.  Compare  the  lines  of  Homer  describing  the  pur- 
suit of  Hector  by  Achilles  (Iliad  xxii,  157-161):  "Thereby  they 
ran,  he  flying,  he  pursuing.  Valiant  was  the  flier,  but  far 
mightier  he  who  fleetly  pursued  him.  For  not  for  beast  of 
sacrifice  or  for  an  ox-hide  were  they  striving,  such  as  are  prizes 
for  men's  speed  of  foot,  but  for  the  life  of  horse-training  Hector 
was  their  race."  So  here  the  prize  is  the  soul  of  man  to  be  won 
whoUy  to  God. 

Line  108.  Noised. — I.  e.,  making  noise. 

Line  no.  When  we  content  God  and  have  our  heart  set  on 
Him  above  all,  then  the  little  joys  and  pleasures  of  earth  con- 
tent us,  because  we  seek  to  draw  from  creatures  only  the 
meed  of  happiness  they  are  meant  to  give  and  we  use  them 
aright,  as  "food  for  our  journey  and  not  as  snares  for  our 
tarrying"  (viaticum  itineris,  non  illecebra  mansionis).  But 
when  we  content  not  God  and  have  our  hearts  far  from  Him, 
then  nought  contents  us,  either  because  the  foreseen  brevity  of 
the  happiness,  which  created  things  will  give,  taints  even  the 
initial  tasting,  or  because,  blind  to  the  limited  pleasure-con- 
tent of  created  things,  we  seek  to  gain  from  them  what  they  are 
adequately  powerless  to  give,  and  then  find  ourselves  unsated. 
"God  made  man  after  His  own  image  and  likeness,"  wherefore 
He  gave  him  an  infinite  capacity,  and  infinite  desires,  such  as 
caimot  be  satisfied  with  any  finite  goods.  Therefore  it  is 
necessary  that  God  alone,  who  is  infinite  Good,  should  fiU  and 
satisfy  that  capacity. 


58  NOTES 

Lines  111-154 

In  these  lines  we  have  the  awakening  of  the  soul  progres- 
sively portrayed.  In  lines  111-129  the  poet  pictures  his  shat- 
tered life  and  the  fading  of  his  last  hope  to  find  comfort  at 
least  in  his  worded  work,  just  as  every  shattered  soul  clutches 
with  piteous  futility  at  some  pet  nothingness  on  which  to  try  to 
stay  its  beaten  love.  Then  in  lines  130-154  the  truth  begins 
to  be  realized  that  love  for  God  must  stand  alone  in  the  soul  and 
that  it  grows  and  flourishes  therein  only  when  the  soul  has  been 
"dunged  with  rotten  death"  and  by  its  dead  hopes  rendered 
fertile  to  give  God  unstinted  love. 

Line  iii.  With  the  prophet  Jeremias  (xlvii,  6)  the  soul  cries 
out:  "O  thou  sword  of  God,  how  long  wilt  thou  not  be  quiet? 
Go  into  thy  scabbard,  rest,  and  be  still."  Still  and  motionless 
this  sword  will  be,  if  only  the  soul  itself  will  allow  it  to  remain 
so.  If  it  has  now  learned  the  lesson  that  God  will  have  it 
learn — that  of  whole-hearted  submission  to  His  Will — then 
it  is  wrong  in  awaiting  an  uplifted  stroke,  unless  indeed  it 
prove  itself  as  stiff-necked  in  its  rebellion  as  were  the  Jews  to 
whom  Isaias  prophesied  (ix,  11-13):  *'The  Lord  .  .  .  shall 
bring  on  his  enemies  in  a  crowd :  the  Syrians  from  the  east  and 
the  Philistines  from  the  west  and  they  shall  devour  Israel  with 
open  mouth.  For  all  this  His  indignation  is  not  turned  away, 
but  His  hand  is  stretched  out  still.  And  the  people  are  not 
returned  to  Him  who  hath  struck  them  and  have  not  sought 
after  the  Lord  of  Hosts."  If  the  soul  will  return  to  Him  who 
hath  struck  it,  then  it  will  hear  the  Psalmist  singing,  "A  con- 
trite and  humbled  heart,  O  God,  Thou  wilt  not  despise" 
(Psalm  1,  19).  It  would  seem  that  Thompson  portrays  the 
soul  as  just  beginning  to  realize  that  it  was  really  God's  love 
for  it  that  brought  all  this  disappointment.  Love's  "No" 
must  often  cost  a  deal  of  pain  and  it  is  often  wisely  cruel  for 
love  to  say  it.    Compare  Hebrews  xii,  5-8: 


NOTES  59 

"My  son,  neglect  not  the  discipline  of  the  Lord; 

Neither  be  thou  wearied  whilst  thou  art  rebuked  by 
Him. 
For  whom  the  Lord  loveth,  He  chastlseth; 

And  He  scourgeth  every  son  whom  He  receiveth. 

Persevere  under  discipline.  God  dealeth  with  you  as  with 
His  sons;  for  what  son  is  there,  whom  the  father  doth  not  cor- 
rect? But  if  you  be  without  chastisement,  whereof  all  are 
made  partakers,  then  are  you  bastards,  and  not  sons." 

Line  112.  Bit  by  bit,  the  love  of  all  earthly  things  by  which 
he  has  been  trying  to  encase  himself  against  God's  love  has 
been  "hewn"  away.  Lusty  strokes  were  needed,  for  they 
fitted  so  tightly  and  so  snugly,  and  were  grasped  so  wilfully. 
Compare  the  verses  from  "Ccelestis  Urbs  Jerusalem,"  the 
Breviary  hymn  for  the  Dedication  of  a  Church  (Translation 
by  Rev.  T.  J.  Campbell,  S.  J.) : 

"Thy  gates  of  purest  pearl  are  opened  wide 

To  all  the  world;  for,  by  no  previous  worth, 
Are  mortals  led  to  thee;  but  Christ  who  for  them  died. 

Hath  wrought  within  their  souls  a  supernatural  birth 
That  makes  them  bear  the  frequent  mallet's  blow, 

And  the  slow  shaping  which  the  chisel  gives. 
By  which  each  stone  is  fitted  to  the  rest  and  lives. 

That  so  beyond  the  stars  the  Church  of  God  may  grow." 

Line  113.  Metaphor  from  the  old  wars  of  lances.  Compare 
^schylus  (Agamemnon,  lines  60-68;  Morshead's  Transla- 
tion) : 

"Even  so  doth  Zeus  the  jealous  lord 
And  guardian  of  the  hearth  and  board, 
Speed  Atreus'  sons,  in  vengeful  ire, 
'Gainst  Paris — sends  them  forth  on  fire. 


6o  NOTES 

Her  to  buy  back,  in  war  and  blood, 
Whom  one  did  wed  but  many  woo'd ! 
And  many,  many,  by  his  will. 
The  last  embrace  of  foes  shall  feel, 
And  many  a  knee  in  dust  be  bowed, 
And  splintered  spears  on  shields  ring  loud. 
Of  Trojan  and  of  Greek,  before 
That  iron  bridal-feast  be  o'er!" 

Line  115.  Does  Thompson  mean  to  tell  us  that  during  the 
whole  time  of  his  flight  from  God  his  soul  had  been  really 
asleep,  not  alive  to  what  was  real  around  it  and  to  what  con- 
cerned it  most?  Or  does  he  mean  that,  after  all  had  been  stripped 
from  it,  he  lapsed  for  a  while  into  a  dazed  condition  like  unto 
sleep  and,  on  awakening,  first  realized  the  stark  reality  of  his 
witless  wanderings?  Judging  from  his  whole  character,  the 
first  view  seems  correct.    Compare  Job  xvi,  1 2-1 5 : 

"I  that  was  formerly  so  wealthy,  am  all  on  a  sudden  broken  to 
pieces; 

He  hath  taken  me  by  my  neck.  He  hath  broken  me, 

And  hath  set  me  up  to  be  His  mark. 
He  hath  compassed  me  round  about  with  His  lances, 

He  hath  wounded  my  loins; 
He  hath  not  spared,  and  hath  poured  out  my  bowels  on  the 
earth. 

He  hath  torn  me  with  wound  upon  wound, 
He  hath  rushed  in  upon  me  like  a  giant." 

Line  116.  Slowly  Gazing.— So  true  to  life,  when  one  is 
wakened  from  deep  sleep  after  harrowing  experiences. 

Lines  117-123.  Note  and  weigh  each  word  in  this  composite 
picture  of  Hfe- wreckage  and  compare  with  it  the  Psalmist's 
song  (Psalm  i,  1-4): 


NOTES  6i 

"Happy  is  the  man  who  hath  not  walked  in  the  counsel  of  the 
ungodly, 

But  his  will  is  in  the  law  of  the  Lord, 

And  on  His  law  he  shall  meditate  day  and  night. 
And  he  shall  be  like  a  tree  which  is  planted  near  the  running 
waters, 

Which  shall  bring  forth  its  fruit  in  due  season. 

And  his  leaf  shall  not  fall  off: 
And  all  whatsoever  he  shall  do,  shall  prosper. 

Not  so  the  wicked,  not  so: 
But  like  the  dust  which  the  wind  driveth  from  the  face  of  the 
earth." 

and  again.  Psalm  cxxvii,  1-4: 

"Blessed  are  all  they  that  fear  the  Lord: 

That  walk  in  his  ways. 
Thou  shalt  eat  the  labors  of  thy  hands: 

Blessed  art  thou  and  it  shall  be  well  with  thee. 
Thy  wife  as  a  fruitful  vine, 

On  the  sides  of  thy  house. 
Thy  children  as  olive  plants. 

Round  about  thy  table. 
Behold,  thus  shall  the  man  be  blessed 

That  feareth  the  Lord." 

Lines  117-121.  The  poet  here  pictures  life  as  a  dwelling 
supported  by  the  "pillaring  hours"  of  youth,  which  in  his 
rashness  and  folly  he  pulls  down  upon  him,  to  find  himself, 
all  besmirched  and  bedraggled,  standing  amid  the  ruins,  with 
youth  done  for  and  dead  beneath. 

These  lines  vividly  recall  the  story  of  Samson  (Judges  xvi, 
25-30):  "And  rejoicing  in  their  feasts,  when  they  had  now 
taken  their  good  cheer,  they  commanded  that  Samson  should 


62  NOTES 

be  called,  and  should  play  before  them.  And  being  brought  out 
of  prison  he  played  before  them,  and  they  made  him  stand 
between  two  pillars.  And  he  said  to  the  lad  that  guided  his 
steps,  'Suffer  me  to  touch  the  pillars  which  support  the  whole 
house,  and  let  me  lean  upon  them,  and  rest  a  Httle.'  Now  the 
house  was  full  of  men  and  women,  and  all  the  princes  of  the 
Philistines  were  there.  Moreover  about  three  thousand  persons 
of  both  sexes  from  the  roof  and  the  higher  part  of  the  house  were 
beholding  Samson's  play.  But  he  called  upon  the  Lord,  say- 
ing, 'O  Lord  God  remember  me  and  restore  to  me  now  my 
former  strength,  O  my  God,  that  I  may  revenge  myself  on  my 
enemies,  and  for  the  loss  of  my  two  eyes  I  may  take  one  re- 
venge.' And  laying  hold  on  both  the  pillars  on  which  the  house 
rested,  and  holding  the  one  with  his  right  hand  and  the  other 
with  his  left,  he  said,  'Let  me  die  with  the  Philistines.'  And 
when  he  had  strongly  shook  the  pillars,  the  house  fell  upon  all 
the  princes  and  the  rest  of  the  multitude  that  was  there:  and  he 
killed  many  more  at  his  death,  than  he  had  killed  before  in  his 
life." 

It  is  a  searing,  and  therefore  great  grace  from  God  to  be 
made  to  realize  the  blight  that  has  lain  on  our  past  years;  for 
then  as  we  kneel  in  prayer  we  can  humbly  crj'-r  "I  shall  recount 
to  Thee  all  my  years  in  the  bitterness  of  my  soul.  O  Lord,  if 
man's  Hfe  be  such,  and  the  life  of  my  spirit  be  in  such  things  as 
these.  Thou  shalt  correct  me  and  make  me  to  Hve"  (Isaias 
xxxviii,  15,  16).  Then  shall  the  answer  ever  come  back  to  us: 
"As  it  was  your  mind  to  go  astray  from  God,  so  when  you  re- 
turn again,  you  shall  seek  Him  ten  times  as  much"  (Baruch  iv, 
28). 

Line  117.  Rash  Lustihood  of  my  Young  Powers. — Youth 
is  strong,  yet  wasteful  of  its  new-won  strength  and  it  is  usually 
only  the  weight  of  years  that  brings  a  proper  poise  to  every 
act.  Many,  many  men  must  cry  out  with  sorrowing  David 
(Psalm  xxiv,  6,  7) : 


NOTES  63 

"Remember,  O  Lord,  Thy  bowels  of  compassion, 

And  thy  mercies  that  are  from  the  beginning  of  the  world. 
The  sins  of  my  youth  and  my  ignorance  do  not  remember. 

According  to  Thy  mercy  remember  Thou  me; 
For  Thy  goodness'  sake,  O  Lord." 

Line  118.  Pillaring  Hours. — The  time  of  youth  is  the  time 
of  "pillaring  hours,"  i.  e.,  it  is  then  that  man  must  build  for  the 
future  by  means  of  the  proper  moulding  and  the  right  education 
of  his  "young  powers"  of  mind  and  body,  that  they  may  be 
the  "pillars"  or  supports  of  his  maturer  hfe. 

Line  iig.  Pulled  My  Life  Upon  Me. — Does  Thompson 
here  have  in  mind  the  years  of  his  want  in  London,  when  he 
actually  did  pull  his  life  upon  him  and  quite  ruined  his  body 
by  the  use  of  drugs? 

Grimed  with  Smears. — i.  e.,  soiled  by  all  that  he  had  done 
amiss. 

Line  120.  Carrying  out  the  metaphor  of  "pillaring  hours" 
and  "pulled  my  Hfe  upon  me,"  after  the  crash  of  falling  walls, 
he  finds  himself  standing  amid  the  dust  of  the  years  heaped  up 
into  a  mound  of  debris.  Wreckage  is  all  that  is  left,  where  a 
perfect  dwelling  ought  to  have  been.  It  was  while  gazing  back 
at  death's  door  over  the  tangled  wreckage  of  his  lawless  days, 
that  the  penitent  thief  found  it  in  his  heart  to  cry  out:  "Lord, 
remember  me,  when  Thou  shalt  come  into  Thy  kingdom" 
(St.  Luke  xxiii,  42).  That  cry  meant  much  humility;  and 
such  must  we  all  have,  when  the  failure  of  years,  seeming  or 
real,  faces  us,  else  no  man  can  tell  the  sad  future  of  our 
souls. 

Lhie  121.  Mangled. — By  his  own  willful  self-seeking,  thus 
spoiHng  the  handiwork  of  God. 

Line  122.  Crackled. — Where  there  should  have  been  the 
freshness  of  youth,  there  was  nothing  but  the  dryness  of  age, 
fit  fuel  for  the  flames. 


64  NOTES 

Compare   W.   H.    Mallock  ("The   Old   Order   Changeth," 
Vol.  I,  pp.  135-136,  Bentley  &  Son,  London,  1886): 

"Oh  World!  whose  days  like  sunlit  waters  glide. 
Whose  music  links  the  midnight  with  the  morrow, 

Who  for  thy  own  hast  Beauty,  Power  and  Pride, — 
Oh,  World  what  art  thou?    And  the  world  replied: 
*A  husk  of  pleasure  round  a  heart  of  sorrow.' 

Oh,  Child  of  God!  thou  who  hast  sought  thy  way 
Where  all  this  music  sounds,  this  sunHght  gleams, 

Mid  Pride  and  Power  and  Beauty  day  by  day — 
And  what  art  thou?    I  heard  my  own  soul  say: 
*A  wandering  sorrow  in  a  world  of  dreams.'" 

Compare  Psalm  ci,  4-5,  12: 

"  For  my  days  are  vanished  like  smoke. 
And  my  bones  are  grown  dry  like  fuel  for  the  fire. 

I  am  smitten  as  grass,  and  my  heart  is  withered : 
Because  I  forgot  to  eat  my  bread. 


My  days  have  declined  like  a  shadow. 
And  I  am  withered  like  grass." 

Indeed  the  misplaced  efforts  of  his  younger  days  have  passed 
away,  leaving  no  lasting  good  behind,  even  as  smoke  leaves  no 
least  trace  of  its  passing. 

We  recall  the  wonderful  picture  of  life  given  us  in  Wisdom  v, 
9-14:  "All  those  things  are  passed  away  like  a  shadow,  and 
like  a  post  that  runneth  on,  and  as  a  ship  that  passeth  through 
the  waves,  whereof  when  it  is  gone  by,  the  trace  cannot  be 
found,  nor  the  path  of  its  keel  in  the  waters;  or  as  when  a  bird 
flieth  through  the  air,  of  the  passage  of  which  no  mark  can  be 
found,  but  only  the  sound  of  the  wings  beating  the  light  air,  and 
parting  it  by  the  force  of  her  flight;  she  moved  her  wings  and 
hath  flown  through,  and  there  is  no  mark  found  afterwards  of 


NOTES  65 

her  way:  or  as  when  an  arrow  is  shot  at  a  mark,  the  divided  air 
Cometh  together  again,  so  that  the  passage  thereof  is  not 
known:  so  we  also  being  born,  forthwith  ceased  to  be,  and  have 
been  able  to  show  no  mark  of  virtue,  but  are  consumed  in  our 
wickedness.  Such  things  as  these  the  sinners  said  in  hell." 
Compare  also  Isaias  xxxviii,  12:  "My  generation  is  at  an  end, 
and  it  is  rolled  away  from  me,  as  a  shepherd's  tent.  My  hfe  is 
cut  off  as  by  a  weaver:  whilst  I  was  yet  beginning,  he  cut  me 
off." 

Line  12 j.  Compare  the  following  lines  from  Thompson  (The 
Poppy): 

"I  hang  'mid  men  my  needless  head 
And  my  fruit  is  dreams,  as  theirs  is  bread: 
The  goodly  men  and  the  sun-hazed  sleeper 
Time  shall  reap,  but  after  the  reaper 
The  world  shall  glean  of  me,  me  the  sleeper! 


Love!  I  fall  into  the  claws  of  Time: 
But  lasts  within  a  leaved  rhyme 
All  that  the  world  of  me  esteems — 
My  withered  dreams,  my  withered  dreams! 

Thompson's  disappointment,  and  he  was  sadly  disappointed 
at  the  lack  of  appreciation  shown  him  by  the  world,  is  poign- 
antly described  by  him  in  "The  Cloud's  Swan-Song": 

"A  lonely  man,  oppressed  with  lonely  ills, 

And  all  the  glory  fallen  from  my  song. 

Here  do  I  walk  among  the  windy  hills; 

The  wind  and  I  keep  both  one  monotoning  tongue. 

Like  grey  clouds  one  by  one  my  songs  upsoar 
Over  my  soul's  cold  peaks;  and  one  by  one 
They  loose  their  Httle  rain,  and  are  no  more; 
And  whether  well  or  ill,  to  tell  me  there  is  none. 


66  NOTES 

For  'tis  an  alien  tongue,  of  alien  things, 
From  all  men's  care,  how  miserably  apart! 
Even  my  friends  say:  'Of  what  is  this  he  sings?' 
And  barren  is  my  song  and  barren  is  my  heart." 

Line  125.  All  the  more  substantial  objects  of  love  and  of 
consolatory  powers  had  failed  him.  Now  things  most  easily 
had,  the  dream  of  the  dreamer,  the  music  of  the  lutanist,  the 
musings  of  the  poet  that  are  wont  to  bring  a  stray  ray  of  sun-. 
shine  into  dark  hours,  none  of  these  ofTer  relief. 

Compare  the  beautiful  passages  from  the  Apocalypse  xviii, 
22,  23 :  "And  the  voice  of  harpers  and  of  musicians,  and  of  them 
that  play  on  the  pipe  and  on  the  trumpet,  shall  no  more  be 
heard  at  all  in  thee;  and  no  craftsman  of  any  art  whatsoever 
shall  be  found  anymore  at  all  in  thee;  and  the  sound  of  the  mill 
shall  be  heard  no  more  at  all  in  thee;  and  the  light  of  the  lamp 
shall  shine  no  more  at  all  in  thee;  and  the  voice  of  the  bride- 
groom and  the  bride  shall  be  heard  no  more  at  all  in  thee." 
Again  Jeremias  vii,  34:  "And  I  will  cause  to  cease  out  of  the 
cities  of  Juda  and  out  of  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  the  voice  of 
joy  and  the  voice  of  gladness,  the  voice  of  the  bridegroom  and 
the  voice  of  the  bride:  for  the  land  shall  be  desolate";  and 
Ezechiel  xxvi,  13:  "And  I  will  make  the  multitude  of  thy 
songs  to  cease  and  the  sound  of  thy  harps  shall  be  no  more." 

Thus  St.  John  spoke  of  Babylon  and  Jeremias  of  Jerusalem 
and  Ezechiel  of  Tyre;  and  thus  it  is  told  of  every  heart  that 
makes  itself  a  mart  where  the  things  of  time  may  come  and  go, 
but  where  God  alone  is  not  most  welcome.  If  a  man  would 
have  peace  of  soul,  he  must  heed  the  caution  of  the  poet, 
Archbishop  Trench: 

"But  keep  thou  thine  a  holy  solitude; 

For  He,  who  would  walk  there,  would  walk  alone; 
He  who  would  drink  there,  must  be  first  endued 
With  single  right  to  call  that  stream  His  own. 


NOTES  67 

Keep  thou  thine  heart  close-fastened,  unrevealed, 
A  fenced  garden  and  a  fountain  sealed." 

Lines  126-129.  Like  many  another  poet,  he  wove  sweet 
sounding  cadences  of  words  around  the  world  and  all  its  trink- 
ets, and  toyed  with  it  as  would  a  child,  and  it  gave  him  joy  for 
the  while  and  eased  his  heart  a  bit;  but  now,  when  that  earth  is 
loaded  with  heavy  griefs,  the  fragile  cords  can  bear  no  such 
strain. 

Line  129.  Overplussed. — i.  e.,  overcharged,  overloaded. 

Lines  130-132.  Weed. — The  notion  of  weed  is  here  shorn  of 
all  its  unpleasant  connotation  of  worthlessness  and  is  used 
because  of  its  prolificness,  that  makes  all  other  growth  im- 
possible. (This  metaphor,  like  the  title  of  the  poem,  is  a  good 
example  of  Thompson's  felicitous  boldness.) 

Amaranthine. — An  adjective  derived  from  the  Greek  word 
meaning  "deathless."  We  read  in  St.  Peter  (i  Peter  v,  4): 
*' And  when  the  prince  of  pastors  shall  appear,  you  shall  receive  a 
never-fading  (literally  in  the  Greek  'amaranthine')  crown." 

Line  132.  From  the  very  start  (lines  19-27)  the  soul  per- 
ceived (though  its  practical  application  of  its  perception  was 
distorted)  that  God  was  to  be  its  "all  of  love."  Now,  this 
reahzation  is  intensified.  Father  A.  J.  Ryan  (Nocturne)  with 
wonted  simpHcity,  sings: 

"Nay!  Hst  to  the  voice  of  the  Heavens, 

'One  Eternal  alone  reigns  above.' 
Is  it  true?  and  all  else  are  but  idols. 

So  the  heart  can  have  only  one  love? 

Only  one,  all  the  rest  are  but  idols. 

That  fall  from  their  shrines  soon  or  late. 

When  the  Love  that  is  Lord  of  the  temple, 
Comes  with  sceptre  and  crown  to  the  gate." 


68  NOTES 

Line  133.  The  soul  begins  to  see  dimly  something  of  God's 
designs  but  unlike  St.  Paul,  unhorsed  on  the  road  to  Damascus, 
it  yields  no  ready  submission.  The  reason  of  St.  Paul's  in- 
stantaneous yielding  was  that  he  really  had  been  seeking  God 
and  His  glory  according  to  his  conscience.  Here  the  soul  is 
seeking  self,  not  hearkening  to  the  words  of  Our  Lord:  "If  any 
man  come  to  Me  and  hate  not  his  father  and  mother  and  wife 
and  children  and  brethren  and  sisters,  yea  and  his  own  life 
also,  he  cannot  be  My  disciple"  (St.  Luke  xiv,  26).  "If  any 
man  will  come  after  Me,  let  him  deny  himself  and  take  up  his 
cross  and  follow  Me"  (St.  Matthew  xvi,  24).  This  self-denial 
is  the  forfeit  of  sanctity,  the  price  of  being  near  God. 

Line  134.  Designer  Infinite. — One  of  the  strongest  argu- 
ments for  the  existence  of  God  is  "the  argument  from  design." 
The  myriad  multiplicity  of  interacting  agents  both  on  this  tiny 
earth  of  ours  and  especially  in  the  great  unmeasured  reaches  of 
the  heavens  speak  loudly  of  a  Designer,  all-wise  in  His  con- 
ceptions and  infinite  in  His  power  to  make  such  conceptions 
materialize.  "The  harmony  of  the  spheres,"  the  co-ordination 
and  sub-ordination  of  nature's  laws,  and  the  often  palpably  felt 
directive  force  in  man's  own  soul-life  tell  intelligibly  that 
"Behind  the  dim  unknown,  standeth  God  within  the  shadow, 
keeping  watch  above  His  own."  (N.  B.  "The  archetypal  ideas 
of  God,"  which  served  Him  as  exemplars  of  creation,  is  a 
famihar  expression  to  all  conversant  with  even  the  rudiments  of 
Scholastic  Philosophy.) 

Line  135.  Metaphor  from  charcoal  sketching,  wherein  the 
wood  is  burned  and  charred  before  being  fit  for  use. 

The  more  experience  one  has  of  Hfe,  the  more  one  is  con- 
vinced that  pain  and  suffering  is  a  tremendous  grace  from  God. 
"Behold,  I  have  refined  thee,  but  not  with  silver;  I  have  chosen 
thee  in  the  furnace  of  poverty"  (Isaias  xlviii,  10).  It  is  only 
from  hearts  that  are  bruised,  that  the  "sweet  odor  of  Christ" 
will  come  forth.     "Thy  own  soul  a  sword  shall  pierce,  that 


NOTES  69 

out  of  many  hearts  thoughts  may  be  revealed"  (St.  Luke  ii, 
35).    Compare  notes  on  lines  iii,  133,  143. 

Whether  we  will  or  no,  the  cross  awaits  us  everywhere  in 
life.  As  Kempis  says:  "The  cross,  therefore,  is  always  ready, 
and  everywhere  waits  for  thee.  Thou  canst  not  escape  it 
whithersoever  thou  runnest;  for  whithersoever  thou  goest,  thou 
carriest  thyself  with  thee,  and  shalt  always  find  thyself.  Turn 
thyself  upwards,  or  turn  thyself  downwards;  turn  thyself 
without  or  turn  thyself  within  thee,  and  everywhere  thou  will 
find  the  cross.  ...  If  thou  fling  away  one  cross,  without 
doubt  thou  will  find  another,  and  perhaps  a  heavier"  (Imita- 
tion of  Christ,  Book  II,  ch.  12).  Is  it  not  then  plain  common 
sense  to  follow  this  saintly  author's  advice:  "Set  thyself,  then, 
like  a  good  and  faithful  servant  of  Christ  to  bear  manfully  the 
cross  of  thy  Lord,  for  the  love  of  Him  who  was  crucified  for 
thee.  .  .  .  For  He  manifestly  exhorts  both  His  disciples  that 
followed  Him  and  all  that  desire  to  follow  Him  to  bear  the 
cross,  saying:  "If  anyone  will  come  after  Me,  let  him  deny 
himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  Me"?  So  too,  St. 
Paul  exhorts  Timothy  (2  Timothy  ii,  3):  "Take  your  share  of 
trials  as  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ." 

Lines  136-140.  There  is  a  wonted  Thompsonian  profuseness 
of  metaphor  here,  but  no  confusion. 

Line  136.  Spent  Its  Wavering  Shower  in  the  Dust. — Hence 
uselessly;  for  the  fitful  shower  merely  moistens  the  dust  and 
does  not  sink  into  and  fructify  the  earth. 

My  Freshness. — My  youth,  the  time  of  freshness  and 
energy. 

Its  Wavering  Shower. — The  efforts  of  youth  are  wont  to  be 
spasmodic  and  unstable.    "A  boy's  will  is  the  wind's  will." 

Energy  was  spent  in  youth  without  thought  of  the  time  of 
maturer  but  weaker  years.  Many  a  man  who  has  set  his 
heart  unduly  on  created  things  and  won  them  not,  cries  out,  as 
did  the  Apostles  (St.  Luke  v,  5):  "Master,  we  have  labored  all 


70  NOTES 

the  night  and  have  taken  nothing."  Yet  it  is  a  tremendous 
grace  to  realize  this  before  death;  for,  though  it  be  hard  to  go 
to  the  grave,  empty-handed  of  earthly  riches,  it  is  eternally 
bad  to  go  there  poor  in  the  things  of  God.  Compare  note  on 
line  123,  second  quotation,  lines  5-8. 

G.  K.  Chesterton  teUs  us  sententiously  that  "Hell  is  energy 
without  joy";  and  he  sums  up  much  theology  in  those  few 
words. 

Lilies  137-140.  This  whole  metaphor  is  taken  from  a  broken, 
discarded  well  over  which  hangs  a  gaunt,  stark  tree  from  whose 
soughing  branches  the  bleak  wind  spills  down  into  the  stagnant 
waters  below  the  drops  of  rain  which  seem  to  ooze  out  of  the 
branches.  Every  single  word  should  be  weighed  in  this  picture 
of  personal  desolation  which  appeals  to  many  as  one  of  the  most 
powerful  that  has  come  from  human  pen.  The  wealth  and 
force  of  its  imagery  recalls  the  description  of  place-desolation 
in  Isaias  xxxiv,  8-15:  "For  it  is  the  day  of  vengeance  of  the 
Lord,  the  year  of  recompenses  of  the  judgment  of  Sion.  And 
the  streams  thereof  (i.  e.,  of  the  land  of  the  enemies)  shall  be 
turned  into  pitch,  and  the  ground  thereof  into  brimstone,  and 
the  land  thereof  shall  become  burning  pitch.  Night  and  day  it 
shall  not  be  quenched,  the  smoke  thereof  shall  go  up  forever; 
from  generation  to  generation  it  shaU  He  waste,  none  shall  pass 
through  it  forever  and  ever.  The  bittern  and  the  ericius  shall 
possess  it;  the  ibis  and  the  raven  shall  dwell  in  it;  and  a  Une 
shall  be  stretched  out  upon  it,  to  bring  it  to  nothing,  and  a 
plummet,  unto  desolation.  The  nobles  thereof  shall  not  be 
there;  they  shall  call  rather  upon  the  king,  and  all  the  princes 
thereof  shall  be  nothing.  And  thorns  and  nettles  shall  grow 
up  in  its  houses,  and  the  thistle  in  the  fortresses  thereof;  and  it 
shall  be  the  habitation  of  dragons,  and  the  pasture  of  ostriches. 
And  demons  and  monsters  shall  meet,  and  the  hairy  ones  shall 
cry  one  to  another;  there  hath  the  lamia  lain  down,  and  found 
rest  for  herself.    There  hath  the  ericius  had  its  hole,  and  brought 


NOTES  71 

up  its  young  ones,  and  hath  dug  round  about,  and  cherished 
them  in  the  shadow  thereof;  thither  are  the  kites  gathered  to- 
gether, one  to  another." 

Line  i^y.  Broken  Fount. — Once  it  was  a  fountain  fair  to 
see,  holding  pure  waters  of  love;  but  now  it  is  a  broken,  dis- 
carded thing;  and  all  that  were  given  leave  to  draw  love  there- 
from, have  left  it  in  dreary  isolation;  and  all  that  were  to  be  to 
it  the  sources  of  its  springs  of  love  have  sent  no  waters  therein. 

Line  138.  Tear-Drippings. — No  flood  of  tears  such  as  as- 
suage lesser  griefs  but  just  those  dreadful  tears  that  are  dis- 
tilled one  by  one  from  the  mind  in  deepest  desolation  and 
depression. 

Lines  13Q-140.  Dank  Thoughts,  Sighful  Branches. — The 
poor  mind  distills  "dank"  (i.  e.,  gloomy,  oppressive)  thoughts 
from  its  "sighful"  branches,  and  these  fall  into  a  heart  that 
has  lost  all  motion,  suffering  that  dreadful  paralysis  that 
comes  from  excessive  sorrow.  We  cannot  but  think  of  Our 
Lord  in  the  Agony  as  described  in  the  Greek  New  Testament. 
It  is  said  that  he  began  \v7rela6ai  (St.  Matthew  xxvi,  37), 
to  be  sad;  then  aSrjfxovelv  (St.  Matthew  ibid.),  to  be  heavy  and 
dazed;  lastly  i/cOa/jL^eccrOaL  (St.  Mark  xiv,  ss),  to  be  aghast 
and  terrified.  There  is  a  distinct  progress  in  mental  effects  as 
He  allows  the  Passion  and  its  terrors  to  grow  upon  Him. 

N.  B.  We  need  not  press  the  word  "branches"  to  find  a 
strict  parallel  in  the  mind.  It  merely  fills  out  the  picture, 
indicating  that  there  was  no  quarter  of  the  mind  that  offered 
anything  but  sadness  and  depression. 

Line  142.  The  Pulp  so  Bitter. — If  in  the  days  of  youth  and 
new -bom  manhood,  when  hfe  is  wont  to  be  so  sweet  and  every 
day  is  as  a  day  in  June,  I  find  all  so  tasteless,  nay  bitter,  how 
will  my  old  age  be?  The  soul  has  not  yet  learned  the  worth  of 
the  Psalmist's  prayer:  "Cast  me  not  off  in  the  time  of  old-age: 
when  my  strength  shall  fail,  do  not  Thou  forsake  me"  (Psalm 
Ixx,  9) ;  nor  does  it  realize  that  God  can  and  does  make  old  age 


72  NOTES 

for  those  who  have  always  loved  him — yes,  and  even  for  those 
who  learned  late  to  love  Him — a  time  of  gentle,  peaceful  waiting 
for  the  Bridegroom's  coming.  The  last  few  hours  of  even  the 
penitent  thief  were  such. 

We  might  recall  St.  Luke  (xxiii,  31):  "For  if  in  the  green 
wood  they  do  these  things,  what  shall  be  done  in  the  dry?  " 

The  soul  is  now  absolutely  disconsolate,  for  all  objects  of  love 
have  been  taken  from  it. 

"The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes. 

And  the  day  but  one; 
Yet  the  light  of  the  bright  world  dies 

With  the  dying  sun. 

The  mind  has  a  thousand  eyes, 

And  the  heart  but  one; 
Yet  the  light  of  a  whole  life  dies 

When  love  is  done." 

Life  seems  utterly  blanked  now,  and  there  seems  to  lie 
athwart  Ufe's  path  a  future  darker  than  the  shadowed  past. 

Line  143.  Under  the  repeated  dosages  of  disappointment, 
sorrow  and  misfortune,  the  soul's  vision  is  being  cleared,  even  as 
the  blind  man's  eyes  were  given  light  through  the  anointing 
with  clay  and  spittle  (St.  John  ix,  6). 

It  begins  to  see  the  healing  and  sanctifying  value  of  all  that 
the  human  heart  holds  hard,  it  begins  to  realize  the  old  sayings, 
"per  aspera,  ad  astra,"  "per  crucem  ad  lucem."  The  Greeks, 
too,  had  the  proverb:  eav  eiraOe's^  eixaOe^  (if  you  suffer,  you 
learn).  Virgil  makes  Dido  say  (^neid  Bk.  I,  line  630):  "Non 
ignara  maH  miseris  succurrere  disco"  ("Nor  yet  untaught  in 
sorrow's  school,  I  learn  to  succor  grieving  hearts  ").  Isaias  tell  us 
(xxviii,  19):  "Vexation  alone  shall  make  you  understand  what 
you  hear."  And  with  unmistakable  terms  Christ  Our  Lord 
says:  "Amen,  amen,  I  say  to  you,  unless  the  grain  of  wheat, 


NOTES  73 

falling  into  the  ground,  die,  itself  remaineth  alone.    But  if  it 
die,  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit"  (St.  John  xii,  24,  25). 

God  very  kindly  keeps  the  hidden  freight  of  the  future  away 
from  our  eyes;  yet,  from  time  to  time,  as  we  absorb  experiences, 
it  becomes  clearer  and  clearer  to  us  that  the  way  of  progress  in 
this  vale  of  tears  is  the  way  of  the  cross.  God  indeed  has  a 
surgery  for  the  soul  more  heaHng  than  ever  was  or  can  be  the 
surgery  of  the  body — ^yes,  and  far  more  necessary.  Fr.  Ryan 
sings  (A  Thought): 

"It  is  a  truth  beyond  our  ken — 
And  yet  a  truth  that  all  may  read — 

It  is  with  roses  as  with  men, 
The  sweetest  hearts  are  those  that  bleed. 

The  flower  that  Bethlehem  saw  bloom 

Out  of  a  heart  all  full  of  grace. 
Gave  never  forth  its  full  perfume 

Until  the  cross  became  its  vase." 

The  old  dramatist  ^schylus  (Agamemnon),  lines  176-178 
(Morsehead's  Translation)  tells  us: 

"Tis  Zeus  alone  who  shows  the  perfect  way 

Of  knowledge:  He  hath  ruled, 
Men  shall  learn  wisdom,  by  affliction  schooled." 

Joyce  Kilmer  (Poets)  sings  so  beautifully: 

"Light  songs  we  breathe  that  perish  with  our  breath 
Out  of  our  lips  that  have  not  kissed  the  rod. 

They  shall  not  live  who  have  not  tasted  death. 
They  only  sing  who  are  struck  dumb  by  God." 

Compare  notes  on  lines  11 1,  133,  135. 

Line  145.  To  second  the  convictions  that  are  beginning  to 
take  form  in  his  mind,  a  vision  is  given  him  from  Eternity; 


74  NOTES 

and  "Eternity"  being  the  view-point,  truth  is  necessarily 
implied.  Notice  how  fitly  the  whole  scene  is  described :  "battle- 
ments of  Eternity" — for  he  has  been  fighting  against  what  is  of 
God  and  now  the  unshakable  walls  are  seen;  the  "mists"  in 
which  Time  confounds  everything  because  of  our  shortened 
purview  are  "shaken"  for  a  short  "space"  by  the  magic  trum- 
pet. The  soul  catches  a  faint,  dim,  yet  convincing  view  both 
of  the  turrets  and  of  the  summoner,  and  then  the  mists  slowly 
fold  all  out  of  sight  again. 

Lines  148-154.  Different  interpretations  have  been  given  to 
these  lines: 

i.  Lines  148-151  picture  Death.  Lines  152-154  is  an  address 
to  God.  The  adjectives  "gloomy,"  purpureal,"  "c3^ress- 
crowned"  are  claimed  to  be  more  appropriate  if  Death  be 
meant,  but  somewhat  difficult  of  explanation  if  God  be  in- 
tended. Nor  is  the  transition  too  abrupt,  as  the  recognition  of 
Death  in  line  1 50  makes  the  soul  reflect  and  turn  to  God  with  a 
very  natural  question.  Lastly  the  personal  pronouns  in  lines 
148-15 1  are  spelled  without  capitals,  which  Thompson  in- 
variably uses  when  referring  to  God. 

ii.  The  lines  represent  God  throughout.  Our  Lord  is  pic- 
tured in  "glooming  robes  purpureal":  for  He  trod  the  wine- 
press of  Golgotha,  coming  "from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments 
from  Bosra,  the  beautiful  one  in  His  robe"  (Isaias  Ixiii,  i),  and 
He  is  "cypress-crowned,"  for  His  crown,  with  which  He  was 
crowned  conqueror  of  the  world,  was  the  crown  of  death. 
Compare  "laurel-crowned"  for  crowned  with  victory. 

LUies  152-154.  Within  the  answer  to  this  question  would  be 
contained  the  whole  doctrine  of  mortification,  so  grossly  mis- 
understood by  many.  Mortification  is  not  a  fetish  but  a  minis- 
tering angel  and,  as  the  soul's  spiritual  vision  is  clarified,  it 
sees,  that  mortification,  i.  e.,  the  making  dead  (Latin  mortuum 
and  facere),  the  killing  of  all  that  is  disordered  in  our  lives  is 
necessary,  for  three  reasons: 


NOTES  75 

i.  That  we  may  never  be  led  astray  by  our  passions.  Right 
Psychology  teaches  us  that  sense-perceptions  precede  intel- 
lectual and  volitional  movements;  and,  if  they  are  very  vehe- 
ment, are  prone  to  hurry  the  latter  into  action  without  proper 
regard  for  the  laws  of  God.  To  have  perfectly  under  our  con- 
trol at  all  times  and  in  all  places  all  of  our  sense-activities,  a 
deal  of  self-denial,  i.  e.,  mortification,  is  required.  If  we  have 
not  this  control  we  are  the  playthings  of  our  own  passions  and 
passing  moods,  and  from  our  own  hearts  is  wrung,  sooner  or 
later,  the  bitter  cry  of  the  old  poet: 

"I  know  my  soul  hath  power  to  know  all  things, 

Yet  is  she  bhnd  and  ignorant  in  all. 
I  know  I'm  one  of  nature's  little  kings. 

Yet  to  the  least  and  vilest  things  am  thrall. 
I  know  my  life's  a  pain  and  but  a  span, 

I  know  my  sense  is  mocked  in  everything, 
And  to  conclude  I  know  myself  a  man. 

Which  is  a  proud  and  yet  a  wretched  thing." 

Thompson  had  quite  a  singular  grasp  of  the  doctrine  of 
mortification  and  the  necessity  of  denying  one's  self.  He 
puts  it  tersely  in  "Any  Saint": 

"  Compost  of  Heaven  and  mire, 
Slow  foot  and  swift  desire! 

Lo, 
To  have  yes,  choose  no; 

Gird  and  thou  shalt  unbind; 
Seek  not  and  thou  shalt  find; 
To  eat 
Deny  thy  meat; 

And  thou  shalt  be  fulfilled 
With  all  sweet  things  unwilled." 


76  NOTES 

Recall  Tennyson  (In  Memoriam) : 

"That  men  may  rise  on  stepping-stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things." 

ii.  That  we  may  make  atonement  for  past  misuse  of  these 
same  faculties,  when  by  them  we  violated  God's  law,  even  in 
little  things. 

iii.  That  we  may  not  be  "dehcate  soldiers  of  a  thorn-crowned 
King,"  for  "love  either  finds  or  makes  alike";  and  so  "Those, 
who  seriously  follow  Christ  our  Lord,  love  and  earnestly 
desire  ...  to  be  clothed  with  the  same  garment  and  with  the 
Hvery  of  their  Lord  for  His  love  and  reverence"  (St.  Ignatius  of 
Loyola).  It  was  an  over-mastering  love  of  Christ  that  made  so 
many  Saints  practice  unwonted  mortifications  and  could  find 
them  ever  saying  with  the  poet-priest  of  the  South : 

"I  tasted  all  the  sweets  of  sacrifice, 
I  kissed  my  cross  a  thousand  times  a  day, 
I  hung  and  bled  upon  it  in  my  dreams, 
I  Hved  on  it — I  loved  it  to  the  last." 

It  was  such  desire  as  this,  to  be  like  her  suffering  Lord,  that 
made  a  St.  Theresa  plead,  "Lord,  let  me  suffer  or  let  me 
die." 

Man's  Heart  or  Life. — Man's  heart  is  "dunged  with  rotten 
death"  when  it  feels  upon  it  the  weight  of  the  drooping  and 
dead  objects  of  its  earthly  love;  and  man's  Hfe  yields  God  most 
harvest  then  only,  when  it  has  passed  through  ordeals  that 
bring  it  well  within  the  shadow  of  the  Cross. 

Line  154.  Robert  Southwell,  S.  J.,  in  his  "St.  Peter's  Com- 
plaint" has  a  quaint  line: 

"Did  Christ  manure  thy  heart  to  breed  him  briers?" 


NOTES  77 

Lines  155-176 

At  length  the  fleeing  soul  is  overtaken  and  with  words  that 
humble  yet  encourage,  strike  to  the  ground  and  yet  uplift,  it  is 
told  its  real  value  and  whom  alone  it  can  find  to  give  such  a 
worthless  thing  abiding  love.  New  hope,  too,  is  lighted  up 
within  when  it  is  known  that  all  its  faded  dreams  will  be  found 
quite  fulfilled  "at  home." 

Line  156.  Comes  on  at  Hand  the  Bruit. — Note  how  subtly 
the  poet  conveys  the  idea  of  lessening  distance  between  giant 
Pursuer  and  pursued.  It  is  only  now  that  the  sound  of  the 
"following  Feet"  is  near  enough  to  be  heard,  and  they  are  the 
feet  of  a  "tremendous  Lover";  and  so  the  giant's  footfall  is 
indeed  a  bruit  or  great  noise. 

Line  157.  As  the  sea  when  it  bursts  beneath  the  lashing  of  a 
vast  storm  seems  to  be  roaring  above  and  below  and  around 
those  in  the  storm-tossed  bark,  thus  the  voice  of  God  now  so 
surrounds  the  soul  that  there  is  no  avenue  of  escape.  We 
hear  in  this  line  the  refrain  of  the  Psalmist  (Psalm  xli,  8-9, 
translation  by  J.  M'Swiney,  S.  J.) : 

"Deep  to  deep  is  calling,  at  the  noise  of  Thy  cataracts; 
All  Thy  breakers  and  Thy  waves  are  gone  over  me." 

and  again  (Psalm  xcii,  3,  4): 

"The  floods  have  Hfted  up,  O  Lord, 
The  floods  have  lifted  up  their  voice : 

The  floods  have  Hfted  up  their  waves, 

With  the  noise  of  many  waters. 

Wonderful  are  the  surges  of  the  sea: 

Wonderful  is  the  Lord  on  high." 

Thompson  must  surely  have  had  in  mind  the  words  of  St. 
John  (Apocalypse  i,  15):  "And  His  voice  as  the  sound  of  many 
waters." 


78  NOTES 

Line  158.  Note  the  progressive  reproof  in  the  words  of  God. 
First,  a  gentle  correction  which,  however,  brings  hope  (156- 
160);  then  by  degrees,  with  a  tenderness  known  only  to  pierced 
Hands,  He  lays  bare  the  wounds  of  the  soul  and  shows  with 
healing  pitilessness  the  utter  unworthiness  of  the  soul  (161- 
170).  This  indeed  must  be  realized,  if  we  are  to  be  saved  from 
our  own  follies.  Then,  again,  a  correction  of  wrong  impressions 
awakening  old  hopes  (i 71-175).  Finally  the  loving  invitation 
to  let  bygones  be  bygones  and  to  come  to  Him  (176). 

Line  ijg.  Compare  Isaias  xxx,  14:  "And  it  shall  be  broken 
small,  as  the  potter's  vessel  is  broken  all  to  pieces  with  mighty 
breaking,  and  there  shall  not  a  shard  be  found  of  the  pieces 
thereof,  whereon  a  little  fire  may  be  carried  from  the  hearth, 
or  a  Httle  water  be  drawn  out  of  the  pit." 

Line  161.  A  powerful  line  with  a  weight  of  adjectives  that 
sink  into  the  very  heart  of  man. 

Strange. — Weirdly-strange  heart  of  man,  who  is  the  child  of 
God,  yet  runs  away  lest  it  have  no  love  except  that  of  a  Father 
who  so  loves  it,  that  He  gave  His  only  Son  as  ransom  for  its 
sins  and  cried  out  to  it:  "Can  a  woman  forget  her  infant,  so  as 
not  to  have  pity  on  the  son  of  her  womb?  And  if  she  should 
forget,  yet  will  I  not  forget  thee.  Behold  I  have  graven  thee  in 
-My  hands"  (Isaias  xlix,  15,  16). 

Piteous. — Worthy  of  all  pity,  because  its  running  away  is  a 
fooHsh  bit  of  childish  insubordination,  all  to  its  own  hurt. 
"Be  astounded,  O  ye  heavens,  at  this,  and  ye  gates  thereof  be 
very  desolate,  saith  the  Lord.  For  My  people  have  done  two 
evils.  They  have  forsaken  Me,  the  fountain  of  living  water, 
and  have  digged  to  themselves  cisterns,  broken  cisterns,  that 
can  hold  no  water"  (Jeremias  ii,  12,  13). 

Futile.  Because,  if  God  is  determined  to  win  thy  love,  "it  is 
hard  for  thee  to  kick  against  the  goad"  (Acts  ix,  5).  It  is  a 
rebellion  doomed  from  the  start. 

Line  164.  There  is  only  one  human  love  which  stands  not  on 


NOTES  79 

human  meriting  and  that  is  the  love  of  parent  for  child.  This 
love  is  based  and  natively  modeled  on  our  heavenly  Father's 
love.  All  other  loves,  the  love  of  man  and  woman,  of  friend  and 
friend  is  given  precisely  because  of  human  excellence  and  human 
meriting.  Supernatural  love,  however,  being  founded  on  the 
goodness  of  God  and  the  eternal  worth  of  every  soul,  heaven- 
destined  like  ourselves,  sinful  though  it  may  now  be,  reaches 
beyond  and  above  all  this,  remaining  true  when  even  the  love 
of  parent  fails.    Compare  St.  Matthew,  v,  43-48. 

Lines  165-168.  Any  man  who  realizes  intimately  that  these 
lines  are  true  of  him,  can  kneel  and  cry  out  aright  with  the 
Psalmist:  "Out  of  the  depths  I  have  cried  to  Thee,  O  Lord" 
(Psalm  cxxix,  i).  A  vivid  realization  of  this  humihating  truth 
makes  Saints,  men  and  women  to  whom  self  is  nought.  This 
is  the  unraveler  of  the  mystery  of  self -hatred,  so  present  in  the 
lives  of  the  Saints.  At  least  a  lesser  realization  is  necessary  to 
every  man  who  has  at  heart  the  salvation  of  his  soul.  For,  as 
in  the  beginning,  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth  out  of 
nothingness,  so  in  the  spiritual  life,  God  will  not  build  and 
form  and  fashion  save  where  there  is  the  nothingness  of  self- 
esteem. 

Line  166.  Clotted. — No  longer  is  man  the  untainted,  un- 
cursed  clay,  into  which  God  breathed  the  breath  of  life;  for 
entangling  passions  have  made  him  a  sorry  thing.  The  seven 
primal  sources  of  sin  have  woven  his  life,  individual  and  social, 
into  many  a  knotted  skein.  The  intellect,  imbued  with  preju- 
dices, leads  the  will  astray;  the  will,  plunging  headlong  after 
sensible  dehghts,  darkens  the  intellect;  and  against  the  control 
of  both  intellect  and  will,  rise  the  rebellious  senses.  Truly  if 
peace  be  "the  tranquilhty  of  order,"  there  rarely  is  full  peace 
found  in  man  this  side  of  the  grave. 

Clay. — ^As  Ash  Wednesday's  "Remember  man  that  thou 
art  dust  and  unto  dust  thou  shalt  return,"  so  this  line,  with  one 
majestic  sweep,  carries  us  back  to  man's  lowliest  beginning. 


8o  NOTES 

Compare    Thompson's    similar    expressions    found    in    "Any 
Saint": 

"Great  arm-fellow  of  God! 

To  the  ancestral  clod 
Kin 

And  to  cherubin; 

Bread  predilectedly     — 
O'  the  worm  and  Deity! 

Hark, 
O  God's  clay-sealed  Ark." 


'  Compost  of  Heaven  and  mire  " 


"Rise;  for  Heaven  hath  no  frown 
When  thou  to  thee  pluck'st  down, 
Strong  clod! 
The  neck  of  God." 

Dingiest  Clot. — Every  soul  can  say  this,  for  even  though  its 
actual  sins  have  not  been  as  heinous  as  those  of  others,  still  its 
slack  correspondence  with  God's  graces,  especially  when  these 
have  come  with  unwonted  largess  into  its  life,  makes  it  say  in 
all  truth,  that  it  is  the  most  ungrateful  of  mortals,  the  sorriest 
specimen  of  all. 

Lines  167-168.  Indeed,  to  know  how  Httle  worthy  we  are  of 
love,  we  should  have  to  know  what  sin  is.  Yet  this  no  man  can 
know  in  its  entirety;  for  to  evaluate  sin  exactly,  man  would 
have  to  possess  complete  knowledge  of  God  whom  sin  offends. 

Line  i6g.  Ignoble. — Surely  man  is  ignoble: 

i.  In  his  primeval  origin. — "And  the  Lord  God  formed  man 
of  the  sHme  of  the  earth"  (Genesis  ii,  7). 

ii.  In  his  present  nature. — "I  find  then  a  law,  that  when  I 


NOTES  8i 

have  a  will  to  do  good,  evil  is  present  within  me.  For  I  am  de- 
lighted with  the  law  of  God  according  to  the  inward  man :  but  I 
see  another  law  in  my  members,  fighting  against  the  law  of  my 
mind,  and  captivating  me  in  the  law  of  sin,  that  is  in  my  mem- 
bers. Unhappy  man  that  I  am,  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the 
body  of  this  death?"  (Romans  vii,  21-24). 

iii.  By  the  ending  of  his  body. — "I  have  said  to  rottenness: 
Thou  art  my  father;  To  worms:  My  mother  and  my  sister" 
(Job.  xviii,  14). 

iv.  By  his  ingratitude  to  God. — Most  say  "Thank  you"  to 
God  far  fewer  times  than  they  would  in  decency  dare  say  it 
to  a  human  benefactor.  "Were  not  ten  made  clean?  Where 
are  the  nine?"  (St.  Luke  xvii,  17). 

V.  Above  all  in  his  sin. — "Yet  I  planted  thee  a  chosen  vine- 
yard, all  true  seed:  how  then  art  thou  turned  imto  Me  into  that 
which  is  good  for  nothing,  O  strange  vineyard?  "  (Jeremias  ii, 
21). 

In  times  of  self-forgetfulness  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  be  worth 
a  deal  and  we  preen  our  feathers  and  strut  before  the  world; 
but  when  we  sit  alone  and  thinkingly  ponder  the  lapsed  years, 
what  is  the  autobiography  we  see  written  with  incessant  pen? 
"I  will  recount  to  thee  all  my  years  in  the  bitterness  of  my  soul" 
(Isaias  xxxviii,  15).  When  we  finish  the  count,  are  we  anxious 
to  find  a  publisher  for  our  autobiography;  and  were  it  pub- 
lished, would  any  of  its  readers  ever  find  it  in  them  to  love  us? 
Yet  we  crave  to  talk  out  our  hearts.  It  was  to  meet  this  deep 
psychological  craving  that  Our  Lord  deigned  to  institute  the 
confessional,  wherein  we  can  lay  bare  our  inmost  souls  and 
know  that  our  secret  will  never  be  told,  and  ourselves  never 
valued  the  less  for  the  telling  of  our  own  sad  tale. 

Line  170.  The  soul  must  be  made  to  realize  that  "to  Thee  is 
the  poor  man  left:  Thou  wilt  be  a  helper  to  the  orphan"  (Psalm 
ix,  14).  Indeed  it  is  only  God  who  will  accept  the  gift  of  a 
shattered  life,  and  welcome  a  public  Magdalen  and  promise 


82  NOTES 

heaven  to  a  dying  thief.  Truly  "Thou  art  my  God,  for  Thou 
hast  no  need  of  my  goods"  (Psalm  xv,  2),  "for  Thou  lovest  all 
things  that  are,  and  hatest  none  of  the  things  which  Thou  hast 
made:  for  Thou  didst  not  appoint  or  make  anything,  hating 
it.  .  .  .  But  Thou  sparest  all,  because  they  are  Thine,  O  Lord, 
who  lovest  souls"  (Wisdom  xi,  25,  27). 

Lines  171-176.  Note  the  exquisite  touch  in  these  lines.  We 
are  led  to  recall  the  action  of  a  fond  mother  who  takes  away  the 
playthings  of  her  child,  just  that  she  may  have  the  pleasure  of 
having  it  seek  them  from  her  again. 

Compare  the  following  from  Joyce  Kilmer  (Peimies) : 

"  So  unto  men 

Doth  God,  depriving  that  He  may  bestow. 

Fame,  health  and  money  go. 

But  that  they  may,  new  foimd,  be  newly  sweet. 

Yea,  at  His  feet 

Sit,  waiting  us,  to  their  concealment  bid. 

All  they,  our  lovers,  whom  His  love  hath  hid." 

All — Stored — Home. — The  words  are  well  chosen  to  in- 
sinuate the  length  of  the  pursuit  and  the  multiplicity  of  the 
objects  taken.    Note  again  the  ringing  pathos  of  the  lines. 

The  soul  must  realize  the  reason  of  God's  action  which  has 
seemed  to  it  to  be  a  baneful  persecution.  There  are  few  words 
that  insinuate  so  well  the  purpose  God  has  in  afflicting  a  soul  as 
the  words  of  Isaias  (i,  5):  "For  what  shall  T  strike  you  any 
more,  you  that  increase  transgressions?"  God  is  a  divine 
surgeon  who  cuts  to  heal.  When  the  cutting  serves  but  to 
increase  the  malady.  He  desists. 

Compare  Joel  ii,  25,  26:  "And  I  will  restore  to  you  the 
years  which  the  locust,  and  the  bruchus,  and  the  mildew,  and 
the  palmerworm  have  eaten  .  .  .  and  you  shall  eat  in  plenty 
and  shall  be  filled:  and  you  shall  praise  the  name  of  the  Lord 
your  God,  who  hath  done  wonders  with  you,  and  My  people 


NOTES  83 

shall  not  be  confounded  forever."     Also  the  following  from 
Psalm  Ixxxviii,  31-34: 

"And  if  his  children  forsake  My  law, 

And  walk  not  in  My  judgments; 
If  they  profane  My  justices, 

And  keep  not  my  commandments; 
I  will  visit  their  iniquities  with  a  rod, 

And  their  sins  with  stripes; 
But  My  mercy  I  will  not  take  away  from  him. 

Nor  will  I  suffer  My  truth  to  fail." 

Line  173.  Note  emphatic  position  of  "  Just." 
Again,  are  we  pressing  words  too  far,  if  we  note  that  it  is 
"in  My  arms"  and  not  "from"  them  that  the  lost  treasures 
must  be  sought?  Like  a  little  child,  after  having  strayed  from 
her,  nestles  safely  in  its  mother's  arms,  and  finds  its  playthings 
all  about  it,  so  now  the  soul,  without  leaving  God's  embrace,  wiil 
find  all  the  former  objects  of  its  love  brought  near  it. 

Line  174.  A  pitiable  commentary  on  a  man  is  to  say,  "He 
is  an  overgrown  child";  and  yet  every  strayer  from  God  is 
such.  This  likening  man  to  a  child  and  his  waywardness  to  a 
child's  wilfulness  recalls  Coventry  Patmore's  beautiful  lines 
from  "The  Toys": 

"Ah!  when  at  last  we  lie  with  tranced  breath, 

Not  vexing  Thee  in  death, 

And  Thou  rememberest  of  what  toys 

We  made  our  joys, 

How  weakly  understood 

Thy  great  commanded  good. 

Then,  fatherly  not  less 

Than  I  whom  Thou  hast  moulded  from  the  clay, 

Thou'lt  leave  Thy  wrath,  and  say, 

'I  will  be  sorry  for  their  childishness.'" 


84  NOTES 

Before  Patmore,  the  Royal  Psalmist  sang  (Psalm  cii,  12-14): 

"As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west, 

So  far  hath  He  removed  our  iniquities  from  us. 

As  a  father  hath  compassion  on  his  children, 

So  hath  the  Lord  compassion  on  them  that  fear  Him. 

For  He  knoweth  our  frame; 

He  remembereth  that  we  are  dust." 

Line  175.  At  Home. — These  words  alone  ought  to  win  any 
soul  to  God;  and  they  do,  when  fully  grasped.  With  them 
God  would  reawaken  the  long  slumbering  echoes  in  the  exile's 
soul  and  rouse  anew  that  homesickness  for  heaven  that  every 
man  feels  in  his  heart.  Truly,  if  that  is  home,  "where  our  feet 
may  leave,  but  not  our  hearts,"  then  the  infinite  homesickness 
of  the  human  heart  amid  all  the  manifold  joys  of  life,  infallibly 
tells  of  a  home  beyond  the  grave.  The  realization  of  this  makes 
us  call  our  burying-ground,  a  "cemetery,"  i.  e.,  "sleeping-place" 
whence  we  are  to  awaken  and  arise.  This  knowledge  makes 
every  Christian  cry  out  with  St.  Paul:  "O  death,  where  is  thy 
victory?  O  death,  where  is  thy  sting?"  (i  Corinthian  xv,  55). 
To  the  pagans,  of  old  and  of  to-day,  who  misread  this  yearning 
of  the  heart  as  a  desire  to  stay  and  find  at  length  full  light  where 
shadows  always  fall,  death  is  a  bitter,  painful  thing,  that  will 
snuff  out  even  that  mead  of  happiness  we  sometimes  gain  this 
side  the  grave.  Dying  is  not  to  them  what  is  was  to  the  old 
Germans — Heimgang,  a  "going  home," 

Line  iy6.  Throughout  these  words  there  is  no  chiding,  for 
this  will  come  from  the  heart  itself,  when  it  has  learned  to  love 
God  more.  "Thy  own  wickedness  shall  reprove  thee,  and  thy 
apostasy  shall  rebuke  thee.  Know  thou  that  it  is  an  evil  and  a 
bitter  thing  for  thee  to  have  left  the  Lord  thy  God"  (Jeremias 
ii,  19). 

Rise. — Compare  line  113,  "And  smitten  me  to  my  knee." 
Hence  the  need  of  rising. 


NOTES  85 

Clasp  My  Hand. — The  eager  welcome  of  the  surrendering 
soul  by  Our  Lord  is  beautifully  pictured  in  these  words.  Com- 
pare Isaisas  xliii,  i:  "And  now  thus  saith  the  Lord  that  created 
thee,  O  Jacob,  and  formed  thee,  O  Israel:  Fear  not,  for  I  have 
redeemed  thee,  and  called  thee  by  thy  name:  thou  art  Mine." 

Lines  177-182 

With  utter  delicacy  the  poet  describes  the  meeting  in  a  few 
brief  lines  and  draws  the  curtain,  that  words  might  not  mar, 
with  their  vulgar  noise,  the  sacredness  of  that  recognition. 

Line  177.  The  smooth  rhythm  of  these  Hues  audibly  conveys 
the  calm  and  peace  of  the  surrendered  soul. 

Line  178.  Is  My  Gloom. — ^The  words  of  God  have  been 
working  silently  yet  powerfully,  and  here  a  change  of  view- 
point is  evidenced  in  the  soul;  and  this,  a  change  of  view-point, 
is  so  markedly  the  beginning  of  repentance,  that  the  early 
Greek  theologians  called  the  whole  repentive  process  "a  change 
of  mind" — fierdvoia  (  =  an  after  or  later  perception).  Re- 
pentance is  indeed  a  rectifying  of  a  false  judgment  that  a  sinful 
act  was  worth  the  while  committing.  Because  of  this  mental 
rectification  and  readjustment,  there  inevitably  comes  the 
resolve  not  to  sin  again. 

Line  I7g.  The  soul  begins  to  hear  and  understand  tHe  call 
of  God:  "Why  seek  you  the  living  among  the  dead?"  (St.  Luke 
xxiv,  5).  It  has  tried  to  find  its  heart's-ease  there  where  it 
could  not  be  found,  feeding  its  immortal  desires  on  passing 
trifles,  which  are,  like  the  Dead  Sea  fruit,  fair  to  behold  but 
crumbhng  into  ashes  at  the  very  touch. 

With  the  thought  of  protecting  shade  we  may  compare 
Isaias  xlix,  2:  "And  He  hath  made  my  mouth  Hke  a  sharp 
sword:  in  the  shadow  of  His  hand  He  hath  protected  me,  and 
hath  made  me  a  chosen  arrow:  in  His  quiver  He  hath  hidden 
me."    Indeed  whatever  darkness  comes  from  God  is  one  of 


86  NOTES 

protection,  for  "God  is  light  and  in  Him  there  is  no  darkness" 
(i  John  i,  5). 
Fr.  Tabb  (Eclipse)  presents  a  similar  idea: 

"Fear  not:  the  planet  that  bedims 

The  moon's  distorted  face, 
Itself  through  cloudless  ether  swims 

The  Sea  of  Space; 

And  earthward  many  a  distant  wing 

Of  spirits  in  the  light 
A  salutary  shade  may  fling 

To  mark  its  flight." 

Line  180.  Fondest. — How  strangely  must  this  word  fall  on 
the  erring  soul!  How  has  it  been  fond  towards  God?  Yet  it 
is  by  this  word  that  God  seems  to  eagerly  second  the  slightest 
efforts  of  the  soul.  Truly  the  human  soul  is  "fond."  Its  very 
capacity  for  love  led  its  feet  astray. 

Blindest. — All  wandering  from  God,  all  sin  is  indeed  pitiable 
blindness.  "Father  forgive  them  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do."  Blind,  indeed,  is  the  soul  since  it  cannot  understand 
the  prayer  of  an  Augustine  who  had  himself  wandered  far  from 
God:  "O  Lord  Thou  hast  made  us  for  Thyself  and  our  heart 
is  restless  till  it  rests  in  Thee"  (Confessions  Bk.  I,  ch.  i).  Yes, 
and  it  has  forgotten  the  hymn  that  awakened  echoes  in  its 
child's  heart: 

"Thou  alone  canst  fill  it, 

Little  though  it  be; 
For  Thou,  Lord,  hast  made  it, 

AU  alone  for  Thee." 

The  soul  must  see  that  "destruction  is  thy  own,  O  Israel;  thy 
help  is  only  in  Me"  (Osee  xiii,  9).  "I  am,  I  am  the  Lord:  and 
there  is  no  saviour  besides  Me"  (Isaias  xhii,  11). 


NOTES  87 

Weakest. — How  eager  is  the  Lover  of  souls  to  excuse!    The 

"Little  Flower"  said  that  her  heavenly  Lover  knew  no  mathe- 
matics, for  He  never  adds  our  faults  together  once  we  are  sorry 
for  them.  Here  Our  Lord  shows  Himself  a  true  priest,  "for 
every  high  priest,  being  selected  from  among  men  ...  is 
capable  of  bearing  gently  with  the  ignorant  and  the  erring,  since 
he  is  himself  beset  with  weakness"  (Hebrews  v,  1-2). 

Line  182.  Even  as  the  prodigal  was  welcomed  by  his  ex- 
pectant father,  so  the  vagrant  soul,  that  has  wasted  its  sub- 
stance on  the  fruitless  love  of  creatures,  is  greeted  by  God  its 
Father  and  brought  back  home,  and  all  the  Angels  of  God  are 
glad  for  they  know  that  their  "brother  was  dead  and  is  come  to 
life  again;  he  was  lost  and  is  found"  (St.  Luke  xv,  32).  Even 
as  God  bends  down  to  greet  the  wayward  culprit,  it  hears  the 
cheering  words:  "Be  of  good  comfort  my  children  ...  for  as 
it  was  your  mind  to  go  astray  from  God,  so  when  you  return 
again  you  shall  seek  Him  ten  times  as  much"  (Baruch  iv, 
27-28).  "Therefore  at  the  least  from  this  time  call  to  Me: 
Thou  art  my  Father"  (Jeremias  iii,  4). 


As  the  soul  gives  in  at  length  to  God  and  yields  an  uncondi- 
tional surrender  then  "the  peace  of  God  which  surpasseth  all 
imderstanding "  (Philippians  iv,  7)  enters  into  it  and  such  joy 
comes,  too,  that  the  grateful  soul  breaks  out  into  the  song  that 
Judith  sang  (Judith  xvi,  16-17): 

"O  Adonai  Lord,  great  art  Thou, 

And  glorious  in  Thy  power, 

And  no  one  can  overcome  Thee. 
Let  all  Thy  creatures  serve  Thee, 

Because  Thou  hast  spoken  and  they  were  made; 

Thou  didst  send  forth  Thy  spirit  and  they  were  created. 

And  there  is  no  one  that  can  resist  Thy  voice." 


88  NOTES 

No  longer  is  it  "sore  adread,  lest  having  Him,  it  must  have 
nought  beside"  for  it  has  learned  that  He  and  He  alone,  as 
"Goodness  without  limit,"  can  satiate  every  craving  of  its 
being.  Its  one  prayer  now  is  the  prayer  of  Loyola's  soldier- 
saint:  "Only  Thy  love  and  grace  on  me  bestow,  possessing 
these,  all  riches  I  forego."  If  there  be  aught  of  regret  that  it 
feels,  it  is  that  it  has  sadly  squandered  its  love  and  surrendered 
too  late  and  too  reluctantly  to  God.  "O  Lord,  our  God,  other 
lords  besides  Thee  have  had  dominion  over  us,  only  in  Thee  let 
us  remember  Thy  Name"  (Isaias  xxvi,  13).  "Thou  art  great, 
O  Lord,  and  Thy  kingdom  is  unto  all  ages:  for  Thou  scourgest, 
and  Thou  savest:  Thou  leadest  down  to  hell  and  bringest  up 
again,  and  there  is  none  that  can  escape  Thy  hand"  (Tobias 
xiii,  1-2). 


The  pursuit  is  over  now,  but  rest  does  not  ensue.  At  once  a 
new  race  is  begun,  but  Our  Lord  is  now  at  the  side  of  the  soul 
as  it  runs  its  course  heavenwards.  Nor  is  the  race  a  slack  one. 
"There  is  need  of  running,  and  of  running  vehemently.  He 
that  runneth  a  race,  seeth  none  of  those  that  meet  him;  whether 
he  be  passing  through  meadows,  or  through  dry  places:  he  that 
runneth,  looketh  not  at  the  spectator,  but  at  the  prize.  .  .  . 
He  is  occupied  in  one  thing  alone,  in  running,  in  gaining  the 
prize.  He  that  runneth  never  standeth  still,  since  even  if  be 
slacken  a  little,  he  has  lost  the  whole.  He  that  runneth,  not 
only  slackens  nothing  before  the  end,  but  then  even  especially 
straineth  his  speed"  (St.  John  Chrysostom,  Homily  vii,  on 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews).  Yet  there  is  the  greatest  joy 
and  satisfaction  in  this  race,  for  the  soul  now  has  caught  the 
rich  meaning  of  the  words  wherein  St.  Paul  calls  to  us  aU, 
after  that  he  has  told  of  the  faithful  Saints  of  old:  "And  there- 
fore we  also  having  so  great  a  cloud  of  witnesses  over  our  heads, 
laying  aside  every  weight  and  sin  which  surrounds  us,  let  us 


NOTES  89 

run  with  steadfastness  the  race  proposed  to  us,  looking  on 
Jesus,  the  author  and  finisher  of  faith"  (Hebrews  xii,  1-2). 

Thus  side  by  side  the  soul  and  Our  Lord  will  go  forward  in 
the  race  and  there  will  be  no  anxiety  "for  though  I  should 
walk  in  the  midst  of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil, 
for  Thou  art  with  me.  Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff,  they  com- 
forted me"  (Psalm  xxii,  4).  If  we  but  journey  on  by  His  side 
and  forsake  Him  not  there  will  be  no  need  of  the  prayer:  "Cast 
me  not  off  in  the  time  of  old  age:  when  my  strength  shall  fail, 
do  not  Thou  forsake  me  "  (Psalm  Ixx,  9) ;  for  we  shall  go  on  and 
on  together  through  this  valley  of  tears  with  the  light  of  another 
world  in  our  eyes  and  the  music  of  Angels'  song  within  our 
hearts.  There  will  be  days  of  gloom  and  trial,  days  when 
poor  mortal  flesh  would  fain  take  rest;  but  we  shall  travel 
swiftly  on  despite  it  all. 

"  Coward,  wayward  and  weak, 

I  change  with  the  changing  sky, 
One  day  eager  and  brave 

The  next  not  caring  to  try, 
But  He  never  gives  in,  and  we  two  shall  win, 

Jesus  and  I." 

Thus  will  He  lead  us  on,  "o'er  moor  and  fen,  o'er  crag  and 
torrent,  'till  the  night  is  gone,"  "until  the  day  dawn  and  the 
day-star  arise"  (2  Peter  i,  19),  and  we  come  "home"  to  find 
our  lost  trinkets  stored  in  Father's  house.  "O  kingdom  of 
eternal  blessedness!  where  youth  never  groweth  old,  where 
beauty  never  waneth,  nor  love  groweth  cold,  where  health 
knows  no  sickness,  where  joy  never  decreaseth,  where  life 
hath  no  end"  (St.  Augustine,  Soliloquy,  ch.  36).  "Even  to 
your  old  age  I  am  the  same,  and  to  your  gray  hairs  I  will  carry 
you;  I  have  made  you  and  I  will  bear;  I  will  carry  and  I  will 
save  (Isaias  xlvi,  4).  Therein  lies  the  secret  of  it  all,  the  com- 
radeship of  my  changeless  Friend. 


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